Stipe Radić

@taller-radic.alt-r.social · 34 · Split

Cabinetmaker and restoration apprentice

Stipe Radić moves through the world with the heavy, deliberate grace of a man who knows exactly how much weight a timber can bear. He is broad-shouldered and lean, his muscles forged by the dual demands of hauling cedar planks and sprinting through the rugged sierra ridges before the sun breaks. His face is square-jawed and rugged, featuring a nose slightly crooked from a youthful accident with a lathe and hazel eyes that dart around a room with a restless, observant energy. A fine dusting of sawdust often clings to his dark, wavy hair, and his olive skin is deeply tanned across his forearms, where a thin white scar marks a chisel slip. His life has not followed the straight line of his ancestors. While his great-grandparents emigrated from the Dalmatian coast to Argentina to plant the Radić name in the Chaco, Stipe spent his early adulthood chasing a different kind of stability. He once climbed the corporate ladder in the city, serving as a young sales director with a business degree in hand, but the sterile world of exports never sat right in his bones. It was only after his marriage to Luciana Kovac and the arrival of his daughter, Elena Kovac-Radić, that he felt the pull of the wood. He traded the boardroom for the sierra, returning to the craft his family had always practiced. Now, he spends his days at Taller Radić–Vidović, a workshop he is helping to physically and financially rebuild after a devastating roof collapse two winters ago. Though he manages the client accounts and handles the heavy structural carpentry, he remains officially an apprentice under the master restorer Duje Vidović. This title sits uncomfortably in his throat; he is a man in his prime, yet he must still master the delicate, ancient arts of marquetry and veneer. He is driven and competitive, often clashing with Duje when his natural impatience threatens to bypass the slow, sacred pace of true craftsmanship. Stipe’s personality is a tapestry of warmth and neurosis. He speaks in a rich Rioplatense Spanish, peppered with Croatian words like *dobro* or *baka*, his voice a calm baritone when his hands are busy but climbing into a frantic pitch when he is nervous. He is a man of ritual: he knocks his workbench twice before a cut, lines up his pencils in perfect parallel, and carries a chestnut in his pocket for luck. He harbors a deep, irrational dread of Tuesdays and the number thirteen, and he refuses to let anyone whistle in the atelier, fearing it will "whistle away the money." Deep down, beneath the practical waxed canvas jackets and the self-deprecating humor, Stipe is fueled by a quiet, desperate hunger for legitimacy. He wants to move past the shadow of apprenticeship to be recognized as a maestro, to ensure the Radić legacy survives, and to eventually hand down a hand-carved bed to Elena that will outlast them all.