Good Work Screening

Historic Preservation Program Highlights Master Artisans

The Historic Preservation Program will screen the recent film Good Work: Masters of the Building Trades  Saturday July 22nd at 7:30PM in the Batza Room. The film features several artisans who work in the building trades, including the stone carvers who worked in the National Cathedral. Marjorie Hunt, from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and on of the film's producers and directors, will join us to talk about the film. The event is free and open Goucher community members. 

Good Work captures the knowledge, skills, and traditions of master artisans in the building trades and explores the spirit of creativity and excellence that infuses their work. Through beautifully filmed profiles of eight master craftspeople from across America – stone carvers, masons, terra cotta artisans, plasterers, metalsmiths, stained glass artisans, decorative painters, and adobe craftsmen – the documentary addresses themes that like at the heart of craftsmanship, including teaching and learning, connections to family heritage and occupational traditions, community standards for judging excellence, creativity and innovation, and efforts to revitalize and sustain endangered craft skills in today’s world.

Throughout the film, craftworkers relate their stories and experiences in their own words, revealing the underlying attitudes and values that shape and give meaning to their work. Viewers come to understand and appreciate not only the deep and complex body of knowledge and technical mastery that artisans bring to the performance of their craft, but their great care and commitment, their delight in skill, their desire to preserve and pass on their craft traditions, and their feelings of pride and satisfaction in good work.

Good Work is a co-production of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and American Focus Inc. in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects, the Associated General Contractors of America, the National Building Museum, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Major funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.