…. because I just sold 3 more fish on etsy! [ 2 mugly the monkfishes and 1 snaggletooth the anglerfish! ]
once they are made, they will be hand-delivered to a very lovely and [ there's just no better word for her ] COOL scientist who studies monkfish at harvard university! =)
very excited, very happy, and now I will be very busy again, so my piece-a-day week may need to be put on hold until the fish are done [ i ended up making 2 pieces last night though! they weren't supercomplicated or anything, but I like them a lot and think they're quite pretty - i will post pictures when i get home tonight! ].
my joy was a little bit wet-blanketed though by someone who called my “products” too “expensive”. It just made me realize again how hard it is for handmade crafts to become successful businesses here in big-box corporate America, where our consumers are so used to being happily ignorant to where their products come from, how they were made, who they were made by, and how much those people get paid, just so we can get ‘a good deal’.
true craft and worksmanship are overlooked and underappreciated by so many people because these “products” naturally carry a higher price tag, due to how they are made, and how much time and detail goes into these crafts.
what people don’t realize is what they are buying into, when they buy big-box versus artisan; big box factories don’t care about their workers, they don’t care about their suppliers, they don’t care about our resources, they don’t care about how their products are stored, if mites, rats, mold, and other undesirables are kept out (they just throw in some silica gel packets, hope for the best, and sell them anyway, right?). They don’t care because their bottom line is all about profit, and within that profit margin, they are not paid to CARE. Their cookie-cutter mass-produced factory output is made by anonymous hands, designed by anonymous brains, made in obscure sweatshops in exploited countries that perhaps even employ illegal labor, packed by anonymous packers, shipped by un-named ships, handled by who-knows-who, sent to unknown warehouses, distributed to big-box chains to be displayed on long greasy metal shelves, only to be thrown into some clearance bin to be on sale for $5.
And we buy these things for ourselves? for our friends and loved ones? for others’ children? for our own children?
we do, because we have no choice – most of us are not paid enough to have that choice to buy alternative products made with [ i know it sounds cheesy, yet it's so true ] love by people with names and faces.
i understand this, and i appreciate handmade to the utmost – yet i cannot always buy handmade because I cannot afford to. I recognize that most of us cannot afford to.
but all i wish for, is for people to understand that we as consumers have become victims to this kind of goods, products, and market structure and box, to be conscious of what we are buying into when we must buy big-box or branded goods, and to also be conscious that there are alternatives, to choose these alternatives if and whenever possible, and to appreciate and understand handmade alternatives, that they are not “expensive”, and they are not just “products”.
okay, perhaps compared to what we are used to buying in the blue-light bins at Kmart, yes they are expensive – but please, please, please just consider for a moment what went into the pricetag, and what you are buying into, and what you are supporting.
and if what you are looking for is uniqueness, high-quality, being able to trace the material sources, cleanliness, good design, safety (basically everything that we as consumers are told even by our government to look for), then these price tags are not truly “expensive”. you just actually get what you are paying for.
anyway, peace, love and happy crafting, and if you are willing to, take the handmade pledge.
~ debby
I love you, bjorn-the-goldfish!!