Handmade...What's It to You? A Reflection

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious,

unfathomable...     Don Juan in Journey to Ixtlan

My hands make things. I could no more help this as a child than I can today as an elder. The objects made are meaningful both to me and their recipients, but “handmade,” what is it to you? Try this little experiment at home: go into each room and look about you. How quickly can you identify the handmade objects? The art works hanging on the walls or sculptures on a shelf are, of course, obvious candidates, but it's pretty easy, isn't it, to pick out all the objects that are handmade? Why is this so?

A primary reason is that we can often associate the handmade object with a particular person or a moment in our personal history. The coffee mug in our hand was purchased from Jason at his local pottery studio, or the rocking horse in the corner was made by grandpa for your child. That very child made the ceramic ashtray on your side table. A successful bartering moment abroad left you with the basket gracing your wall. In the window hangs a hand-blown glass piece by your friend George. If you are acquainted with the maker, their image and personality are inextricably interwoven with the object, but even if you buy from a perfect stranger on Etsy, a connection is felt. Thus, personal memory, whether an association with the maker or the purchase event, is an all-important factor in pointing out and valuing handmade objects. Do note, however, that such factors are not intrinsic qualities of the object itself. Let's call these “objects with stories.”

Another characteristic of handmade objects about your home has more of an ethical element because they represent mindful spending and a concern for your community. For instance, you know this purchase has supported a local craftsperson and indirectly the local economy. You know that this purchase utilizes sustainable and ecological materials, practices that help the environment. You know that with this purchase you have, in a small way, celebrated the maker's creativity, their community and the preservation of their craft or tradition. You can pat yourself on the back as a responsible consumer with concern for your community and physical world. This may not be a conscious element in your enjoyment of such things, but it is in the background. So, let's call these handmade things “objects with ethics.” Again, do note that these are not intrinsic qualities of the object itself, but ones that you and society assign to it.

Let's refine the experiment now by eliminating connections, stories and ethics and invite a stranger into your home to go about the rooms with the goal of finding the handmade objects.

What criteria would they use? Well, they would begin with an enormous data bank of what mass-manufactured goods look like from countless hours spent shopping in stores and online. Thus certain objects would not look familiar, would not register in the data bank, or they might find imperfections, lack of symmetry, crudeness or obvious signs of handcrafting. The object might just be clearly unique, a true one-of-a-kind. Alternatively, the object might be an example of a certain cultural tradition or ethnic heritage, such as a Native American basket, recognized as typically handcrafted though not entirely immune from factory duplication. The stranger might actually do a half-decent job of finding the handmade in this manner. Let's call these objects “special,” though finally we have a quality that is intrinsic. 

 

Let's modify the experiment now and pick up one of your favorite handmade pieces. Spend some time with the object. Hold it, handle it, give it some time in your hands, perhaps close your eyes. Is there anything else you sense? Can you pick up on any subtle quality, one for which we do not have a proper term in English?

Here I call upon my years of studying physics with an especial interest in the philosophical writings of the greatest 20^th century physicists. Most of these scientists were surprisingly humble and realized that there is much more to the universe, to mind and matter, than we know or can quantify. They knew our understanding of our world is rudimentary and imperfect. The Nobel Prize winner and great scientist Erwin Shrödinger believed that the mind could influence the external world and vice versa. For instance, a chapter heading in one of his essays is: “Reasons for Abandoning the Dualism of Thought and Existence, or Mind and Matter.” And so, let me posit the idea, which cannot be disproven, that the craftsperson has imparted something of their mind or call it love or call it spirit or call it being or call it power to this seemingly inanimate object.

In the Mideast perhaps we do find a word that touches on this phenomenon, the word baraka, which refers to a blessing or grace flowing through God into a worthy creation, be it a place, a person or a physical object. You may be familiar with this word through the name of a recent President. Nonetheless, it is not my intent to engage in a metaphysical discourse, which stops right here. I merely, and very briefly, would like to suggest that handmade objects possess intangible attributes which, perhaps more than the other factors mentioned, make us unknowingly value them.

Like myself, my father loved to work with his hands and make things. He always had one project or another going on in our basement workshop. I kept very few things of his, but I began, with the writing of this reflection, to look about for what I had saved. Almost everything was handmade! The photos in this post are all his handicrafts, a wire take-apart puzzle, a “bear” knife with my initials on the rivets, and a spinning wooden ice cream spoon to rotate in your cup of pencils as one heads out to work and as one returns. Let's hope your work lets you leave the spoon always turned to a smile.

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