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Hand-made glass objects made in Spain by using the age-old method of blowing have almost entirely disappeared in the face of spreading industrial and mechanical techniques. However, the traditional picture of a craftsman blowing cylinders of molten glass collected at the end of the tube which is rotated continuously can still be observed every day in the workshops of Palma de Mallorca, Campanet and Algaida (Mallorca) as well as Barcelona, where basically fantasy objects are made.

Another craft connected with making glass of great beauty is that of cutting for which mass-produced glass articles are used in general today. L'Ollería (Valencia), Burgos, Madrid, Barcelona and Vigo (Pontevedra) are places where such glass is decorated and cut.

Workshops making stained glass and lead-rimmed glass in general, which are of great importance for the recovery and maintenance of the Spanish heritage of art, can still be found in quite a number of Spanish villages and towns, but especially in Madrid, Barcelona and Segovia. Today their production goes beyond the boundaries of religious stained glass to comply with a growing demand, basically from domestic and civil areas.

There are crafts, which use non-metallic minerals, such as marble, alabaster, stone, plaster and stucco. In many cases, they have played a secondary role in the construction business.

Especially noteworthy stonework includes the stone crosses called cruceiros because of their tradition and beauty. Many of them are found along the ways and on the squares of Galician worship. Most of them are made in Santiago de Compostela (Coruña) today. Another very interesting craft is that of carving coats of arms and blazons out of stone for mansions and palaces as well as making reproductions of deteriorated capitals and arches for buildings of interest to the history of art and architecture (which is compatible with more industrialised activities).

Engraving and carving tomb stones have become very industrialised activities and can be found practically everywhere in Spain.

Alabaster and marble are used to make decorative objects. The process is widely mechanised, but the designs are those of old.

Cintruénigo and Fitero in Navarra, Sarreal in Tarragona and Macael, Fines and Cantoria in Almería are the most outstanding production centres of this activity. Olot (Girona) is the most famous centre for the production of religious imagery of decorated and painted plaster and plaster of Paris.

Musical instruments

The maker of musical instruments is without doubt one of the craftsmen who has been famous and admired most for his work because the quality, perfection and beauty of the sound depends on his mastery.

Spain continues with its traditional production of guitars and other string instruments for serenading (lutes, mandolas, etc.) using carefully chosen materials (guaiac, Lebanon cedar, ivory, pine, fir, cypress, nickel silver frets, ebony, etc.) Madrid, Granada, Almería, Córdoba, Valencia, Casasimarro (Cuenca) and Bañolas (Girona) are the most important production centres. The recent reappraisal of the individual features of the different Spanish people has led to the recovery of numerous musical instruments of the popular kind (hurdy-gurdy, the guitar-like vihuela, which is an early kind of fiddle, rebeck, timple or tiple, psaltery, ie, a triangular stringed instrument, bagpipe, flute, dulcimer, albogue, also a kind of dulcimer, tambourines, castanets, etc.)

The instrument rebec or rebeck (a one- or two-string which originally seems to have had three) and was brought to Spain by the Arabs, is basically used in popular Castilian and mountain folklore. It is still made in different places in the Provinces of Toledo, Santander, Burgos, Palencia and Logroño.

Other interesting string instruments include the Canarian timple (see above), of uncertain origin and of a guitar-like structure, but smaller in size and with four or five strings. It is built on La Palma Island, at Teguise (Lanzarote) and on La Gomera. The hurdy-gurdy is of medieval origin and can still be found in Lugo where it is made.

Among the wind instruments there are the well-known bagpipe, which is made in several places in Galicia and Asturias, the Ibiza flute or the Basque txistu, the Mallorca ocarina made of baked clay, the Castilian dulcimer recovered in Segovia (Maderuelo) and the reed or ceramic whistles from Andújar (Jaén) and Mallorca (Siurelles), the horseshoe-shaped birimbao from Lugo (Fonsagrada) or the Basque alboka.

Percussion instruments are also well represented in Spain with drums from Albacete (Hellin and Tobarra), Ibiza, Teruel (Calanda, Alcañiz and Andorra) or La Gomera, castanets (variously called castañuelas, chácaras in the Canarias or palillos in Castilla), which are made in Ibiza, Córdoba, Sevilla, Murcia, Valencia, La Palma, Gomera, Valladolid, etc., the pandereta, kind of tambourine from Valencia and Madrid, the zambomba, kind of drum from Córdoba and the carraca, kind of a rattle from Burgos.

Other crafts

In a publication of this kind, it is difficult to do justice to all the crafts still found in Spain. This explains this general article about "other crafts", which are less widely found, but no less interesting than the ones already described.

Candle making is one of these crafts, the production of hand-made wax candies, which follows a unique process consisting of repeatedly introducing the wick into a container of molten wax or paraffin. The thickness of the candle depends on the number of times the wick is dipped into the container. The few workshops still in operation are found in Madrid, Segovia, Toledo and Galicia.

Another craft with a long tradition in Spain is that of the taxidermist, ie, the art of stuffing and mounting whole animals or parts of them. Specialist workshops tend to be close to shooting areas, notably some villages in Toledo, Cáceres and Madrid.

Leather-bound books are the work of a much admired craft because they are of great artistic value. Today only very special editions are bound in this way because of the high cost, while cloth bindings are more generally used. Salamanca, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Granada and Córdoba are the places where the best quality is produced.

Collectors have always been keen on scale-model reproductions of ships from other periods, and there are patient, skilled craftsmen in this field. Workshops in Teruel, Madrid and Barcelona turn out the best products. Another, very attractive variety is that of putting the traditional miniature ships in glass bottles, a craft still found in Galicia.

Despite the sophisticated, industrialised production of toys and dolls in this century, the traditional clay figures of the Nativity scene should at least be mentioned. They are still made in Murcia, Barcelona and Valencia. Not to be forgotten either are the simple, ingenious wooden or papier maché toys (horses, seesaws, small houses, carts, etc.) and the lead soldiers and tin toys. On the other hand, Spain goes through a process of recovering elements of the theatre and popular celebrations, such as marionettes, giants and giant heads, masks, etc., which is a stimulus for new craftsmen to set up. In Coruña, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and Las Palmas there are interesting workshops.

Finally, if only briefly, the work of the craftsmen called falleros deserves to be mentioned. Year after year they build hundreds of papier maché and wooden structures in the streets of Valencia. These structures are witty, ironic reflections of Spanish life and are put to the torch.