Good Work
Masters of the Building Arts
artisans from across America working in the building trades.
They include Scottish American decorative painters restoring the ceiling of Trinity Church in Boston and Mexican American terra cotta workers restoring a Chicago skyscraper, a stone mason and stained glass craftsman preserving and maintaining Washington National Cathedral, a Creole plasterer in New Orleans and a Hispanic adobe builder in New Mexico, an ornamental metalsmith from Virginia, and the New England stone carver and calligrapher who created the lettering on the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.
In these eight segments, the film celebrates American craftsmanship, occupational traditions, the beauty of our built environment, and the importance of Good Work.
The film is a project of the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and American Focus, a non-profit organization creating documentary films about American life. Major funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. The producers, Marjorie Hunt and Paul Wagner, won the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary Film for their previous collaboration, The Stone Carvers.
Visit the PBS website for Good Work here.
A copy of the film can be purchased on Amazon.
Good Work Trailer from Paul Wagner on Vimeo.