[Leica] Re: Depression

[abridge at mac.com (Adam Bridge)]

On Friday, June 4, 2004 Teresa299@aol.com thoughtfully wrote:

>Adam >>
>
>Adam, stick to whatever field you are in and try not to lecture me on
>my craft.  I don't really know what you do for a living but I make
>pots.  I've made them for over 20 years.  Not to restate the obvious
>but aparently I have to....Hopi potters are just that, Hopi potters.  
>I'm not sure if you've considered this, but pottery imported from
>china is not hopi pottery, therefore it doesn't displace hopi pottery.
>   Import pottery has not affected pottery made by indigenous groups
>because collectors of those pots are paying $500 to $1,000 a pot so
>they can have a very specific item, oft times by a specific artist,
>and not a chinese import pot.  Does that make sense to you?

Of course and it's related to the point about markets that I was trying to 
make.
Hand-crafted items seldom can compete against mass-produced ones for ordinary
wear items that are essentially disposable. Which is precisely what most of
these items are: not objects of art: things to be useful.

It's when something hand made and crafted becomes something of enjoyment 
that it
becomes worthy of paying the extra dollars for something hand-crafted. It's
insufficient to buy some merely because it was hand-made. That's silly 
almost on
the face of it.

>In the 60's and 70's and 80's there was a sizeable number of American
>craftsmen who made functional items such as dinnerware, crocks, garden
>pots, etc. Increasingly mass produced imported items (some made by
>machines, some made by equally talented foreign potters who make much
>less money) have taken over markets that used to be dominated by
>functional potters who resided in the United States.   You find it
>hard to believe that that a hand-thrown, hand glazed pot is a direct
>competitor with a molded piece of production made in the zillions. But
>that was part of my point....that to an uneducated buyer, a cup is a
>cup is a cup.  What is the difference between a plastic mug, a machine
>mug and a hand thrown mug?  If one is a philistine, the cheapest mug
>wins.   Unless you have moved from the anonymous craftsman to the
>celebrity artiste you couldn't command the same collector's following
>that follow Hopi or San Ildefonso pottery. The second part of my
>point, the part that you edited out so you can lecture me on supposed
>knee jerk thinking, is that  art education makes a difference between
>a philistine vs someone who can see the difference and value in
>handcraftsmanship.

A cup IS just a cup - its worth comes from the value the buyer places on it.
It's possible to have a piece of mass-produced pottery that does have such a
value because it connects in some way with the buyer.

Clearly you believe that simply because something is hand-made that it should
have a greater market value that something mass produced. I disbelieve this.
It's not about being a "philistine" though. It's about finding something in a
shape, a glaze, that connects. And gee, that MIGHT JUST BE something that 
wasn't
made entirely by hand.

It IS about the marketplace. And it's not about NAFTA.
 
>Incidentallly, I don't consider it snobbish to make the point that
>neither I nor any of my friends make inferior products though most of
>us have long since stopped our masochistic tendencies and moved from
>making functional items as a livelihood.
>
>-kim

But of course if you make artistic objects you might begin to leverage the
beauty that people find in them into your functional items as well.

People like beautiful things that work well. I do. I know many people who pay
more to get something that works well. Even in the world of computers such
companies as Apple make products that cost more than the commodity Dells but
which work better and which have a sense of style. I'll go with that sense of
style.

Adam