Why Handmade?

When I first imagined this blog, I wanted to write the most poignant, beautiful piece about why buying handmade is so important, so radical, and so much fun! Now, I realize that there are so many reasons to buy handmade that I could not possibly condense them all into one entry. So, I will make a series and that series shall be called "Why Handmade?" It shall answer so many questions so perfectly so as to forever alter the way you shop. Or, it will just reinforce your already awesome buying habits and give me something to do. Or most people will continue to buy mass produced crap and the machines will roll on. I'm not fooling myself here, but I believe that mind by mind, hand sewn stitch by stitch, this world will, sooner or later, change for the better. I truly hope so, because, somehow, we have gotten so far from ourselves, it is frightening. We have gone from individual hands reaching up in awe and reverence to paint the insides of ancient caves to the dehumanizing, mind-killing repetition and robotics of modern sweat shop factories. Before we get carried off into fantasies of a new world where all people are reconnected with the precious work of their hands and the fruits of their labors and before we get pulled down into nightmares of a future where factories are the lengths of "16 football fields" and have "6 miles of conveyer belts," (but wait, that is already happening,) let's define our new term:

Mass Produced Crap:



If that picture doesn't scare you, I don't know what will. The inhumanity of it is so striking that it looks like some science fiction novel's worst possible premonition of humanity's future, but it is real and it is now. Factories like this one exist all over the world and I don't even need to tell you about the workers' rights violations and environmental degradations that these kinds of operations are famous for. Let's take this critique to a simpler, less obvious place: what happens to us as people when we are no longer connected to the things we own, when we don't know them from start to finish, when they no longer tell us a story?

A few days ago a friend asked me to think about what I would try to rescue from my apartment if it were on fire. I thought about it while cleaning my bedroom and, looking around, I realized with satisfaction and some sadness that I would only care about saving the things that have stories connected to them that tell the history of my life and most of these things are of little value according to the dominant culture's idea of worth. Of course, if I had children or if the neighbor's cat was sleeping over, I would rescue all of them first, but on any normal night, I would grab the seashells, the stained glass votive candle dish a now dead friend had made for me years ago, my hand bound diaries, a necklace my grandmother made. I would save those things and my life and I would not think twice about the electronics.

In this great piece, blogger and journalist Sarah Wilson discusses how getting our hands dirty is an important technique for human happiness. She reminisces about the magical times in childhood when sitting with her brothers to clean their bikes with rags and toothbrushes was a deeply satisfying ritual. Do you remember those times? She tells us that social scientists have now called this phenomenon of feeling satisfied with the work of one's own hands, "The Ikea Effect." I guess it is called that because people who shop at Ikea feel a sense of satisfaction not experienced with other furniture purchases because they have to take it home and assemble it themselves and this gives them a similar feeling of actually having made it themselves. I personally think it is quite sad that a fundamental part of our humanity that has been with us since the dawn of consciousness has been named after a corporation that mass produces cheap items, utilizes sweatshops, and has done everything in its power to keep dissatisfied workers from unionizing, but, hey, at least people are talking about the fact that using our hands makes us happier.

In short, buying handmade is putting the humanity back into arts and crafts and just about everything else. It is knowing that what you give as a gift or take into your home was made with care, love, and attention by individual hands putting their soul into every detail, not selling their soul to machines just to survive. It means saying yes to a world where people are once again reconnected with the magic of making things themselves and the power of stories to give us our reasons for being. It means, in the very least, buying something that is made to last a lifetime, not one wash cycle.

I didn't tell you all the reasons to buy handmade, but this was a good start. I wasn't the Sarah Connor of crafts (yet!), but I offer you this beautiful video I found when searching for "women making crafts." See the smiles, the colors, the hands, the babies, and the stories? That's what I want to support and make more of in this increasingly mechanical, dehumanizing, and disembodied world. What about you?

Women outside making crafts from James Ryerson on Vimeo.