My paternal grandfather was a tailor. I remember his workshop well: a bright, neat room with everything in its place and a linoleum floor that always seemed freshly swept. There was a long, high worktable and a treadle sewing machine; the room was infused with the smell of wool cloth steaming under a hot iron. I was too young when he died to have known him well, but from my recollections of his workshop I think I might venture that he was a man who worked calmly and methodologically.

That’s how I try to work, and by doing so I like to think that a little family history is sewn into the seams.