The 51 artists and artisans profiled in this book have created everything from elegant oil paintings to playful painted leaves, graceful bronze sculptures to exquisite carved eggshells, artistic quilts to atavistic found-object constructions. The roster also includes glass and metal artists, woodcarvers, weavers, photographers, a folk harp builder, a model ship builder, a sailmaker, a greeting card designer, a collage artist, a light artist, and others. Equipped with a camera and a tape recorder, Buz Swerkstrom produced hundreds of quote-rich profiles over the course of more than 30 years, seeking out interesting, intriguing and talented people throughout northwestern Wisconsin and beyond. Passion for what they did shone as a common denominator. The profiles in this book, which is illustrated with more than 70 black-and-white photos, are more about why than how. Most are fine-focused on motivations, objectives, sensibilities and satisfactions-in other words, on those human aspects that make life both challenging and fulfilling.