artisanship

"Dry stone walls are an intrinsic feature of the Cotswold landscape - an ancient craft that has been passed down through generations - and rural residents are rightly proud of the artisanship and heritage that goes into creating them."

The Chinese, he said, “shun all activities concerning industry and artisanship, which has made the learned inept at anything practical, and the peasants ignorant of real knowledge.”

And I say “palace” because I wanted my livelihood to be stable, maybe even cushy, especially if I was going to go blind by 40 from all that intricate artisanship.

"I posted that photo because we are Afghan women, we wear our culture with pride and we think that our identity cannot be defined by some terrorist group. Our culture is not dark, it's not black and white - it's colourful and there is beauty, there is art, there is artisanship and there is identity," says Lima Halima Ahmad, a 37-year-old Afghan researcher and founder of Paywand Afghan Association which focuses on women's issues.

She remembers climbing the creaking wooden stairs for the first time, noticing the brick hearths in each corner and the chisel marks on the hand-hewn beams — a kind of considered artisanship reflected by her own — and gasping at the light that flooded in from the tall sash windows at either end.