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S porting Life By Jameson Parker D Like bespoke guns, the handcrafted watches from this Montana company are a magnificent marriage of design, beauty and function. thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo daVinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long, Holly." That's Orson Welles as Harry Lime, from the movie The Third Man, cynically justifying his crimes and his utter indifference to the appalling suffering he'd caused. But like all great writing – the script was by Graham Greene, though that particular line may have been written or adlibbed by Welles – there is much truth in it. Adversity, political or personal, frequently appears to inspire creativity. American jobs are rushing overseas like lemmings, and the economy continues to imitate a head-shot mallard, but think of the extraordinary quality of what's being created right here in this country today. Go online and look at the American Custom Gunmakers' Guild: www.acgg.org. on't be so gloomy. After all, it's not that awful. You know what the fellow said: in Italy for Take a look at some of the work on The Knifemaker's Guild: www.knifemakersguild.com. Do you have any interest in cowboys and horses? Even if you don't, check out The Traditional Cowboy Arts Association at www.tcowboyarts.org and look at their online catalogue with handmade belt buckles, a wine holder, a steel trunk, silver work, jewelry boxes, leather goods (including a leg-o-mutton shotgun case that'll leave you panting with desire). In some parts of the country, North Carolina being a good example, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a gifted blacksmith, potter, weaver, woodworker, furniture maker . . . The list goes on. Consider many of the products advertised or written about in this magazine over the years. (And kudos to Sporting Classics for seeking out and featuring some of the greatest artists and craftsmen working today.) Now, another form of traditional, functional art has reappeared. H orology is the art of making timekeeping instruments, and while there is an enormous amount of science that goes into it, at its highest level it is most definitively an artform. Ancient European companies such as Breguet, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piquet, Blancpain, Baume & Mercier, Longines, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Patek-Philippe SPOR TIN G CL ASSICS 60