1 Big Reason Handmade Matters

As Humanity progresses as a species and as our cultures progress we have progressed in the efficiency and scale of our production of food, shelter, our processes of research and our ways of entertaining ourselves.

Products that were handcrafted in the past are much cheaper now that a machine can mass produce at a speed and scale no one could have imagined a few hundred years ago.

Micro-processor manufacturers can imprint chips with microscopic details using lasers so accurate that they could strike a 2” circle on the moon if shot from the earth.

Handmade products cannot and should not compete with these processes.

End of story.

But maybe not.

We are moving rapidly away from how we have lived and made sense of life…

With the rise of AI and the mass changes that are taking place in our societies and cultures. We are moving rapidly away from how we have lived and made sense of life.

During times of upheaval and change I think there is a growing need for both the production of handmade products and people to get back in touch with what it means to make something.

Handmade products ground us back to what is essentially a human experience - curiosity and wonder.

Seeing and feeling, smelling and touching something that is real, that someone spent time and energy and thought and care connects us back to what we are. Human. Flawed. Exceptional.

As the pace towards what is faster and cheaper moves ahead I think the souls of our generation will begin to long for something else - something simpler but far more complex.

Something handmade.

Something Human.

Photos by Guy Ruff III