craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

http://gawker.com/5961169/unionmade-retailer-of-expensive-fashions-that-are-not-union-made

relevant

http://www.bitlaw.com/source/15usc/1125.html

I'm not a hunter-gatherer. I buy my food in the shops. I have a rucksack with everything I need for a camp in it: tarpaulin, bivvy bag, sleeping bag, mat, metal cup, coal tar soap and a little nail brush for cleaning. Each day I cut wood, carve spoons, then head into town and sell them in the street for £5-£30 each. You meet so many people: smack addicts heading for their daily fix, other street sellers, beautiful girls who talk to you for ages and buy lots of spoons. The end of the day comes and I feel brilliant.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/mar/16/weekender-barnaby-carder

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gUTjdLuOz0Y/UDt7JnvN0lI/AAAAAAAAAWU/3bmM-STtV3w/s1600/IMGP2575.JPG

For November only I'm taking online orders for cooking/serving spoons (minimum order - 10 spoons).

£100 plus £10 postage get's you a mixture of 5 octagonal handled and 5 Roma style spoons. I carve initials on the Roma Spoons (maximum 3 initials). If you make payment before 11th November i will carve the initials for free otherwise they are £1/ character.

2 hr workshop (Friday only): “The ten most important knifegrasps in carving. How to use the knife and your body and sharp soul to make functional and beautiful spoons.”

that's seems like a lot of waste. I'd rather have a wooden spoon that was carved by a CNC machine and designed to get the maximum number of spoons out of a piece of wood.

although I guess at night he probably unpacks his rucksack and nests into that pile of shavings.

haha true

http://i.imgur.com/042Np.jpg

lol, 3 days!?

I'm picturing an army of Barnabys rambling across the english countryside, doing their best to finish off the deforestation of the UK.

SPOONSMITHS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

I'd just roll up with my lathe and kick those dudes asses

or just start up HANDMADE SPOONS INC., sourced from chinese factories

You don't understand. Handmade is the name of my computer-operated lathe.

You don't understand, I mean handmade of death. My english is how you say inelegant.

my spoon is lathed out of human hands. HANDMADE.

I keep singing Soundgarden's "Spoonman" in my head but can't come up with an appropriately witty joke to go with that reference

so I'll just put it out there

There are lots of craftsman skills that would probably be helpful if the modern world suddenly came crashing to a halt, but I'll be the one laughing when I see Barnaby trying to whittle a spoon in the Thunderdome.

but you'll be laughing on the other side of your face when you find a yoghurt and have no way to eat it.

http://www.the-rudy.com/images/spoon_can-tee_f.jpg

not sure what the deal is with that but it seemed relevant

yes, that does say spoon

well, it's the canned hands that we'll use to carve our handmade spoons from after the apocalypse

I was looking for the Can album cover with the giant spoon rising into the sky but then I realized that was actually a wrench and I found that thing instead.

i can't really summon up the energy to dislike this tbh

also somewhat doubt one man can carve enough spoons even in a lifetime to make any serious effect on our co2 balance

otoh i saw artisanal fair trade condoms the other day, those seemed ridiculous

were they made out of wood?

I hope they were made of sheeps' guts and tied with a little knot at the ends.

okay they're not actually artisanal

Lovers of the World …. Welcome. You have arrived in the divine realm of the French Letter Condom Company, makers of the first FairDeal condoms for courageous creatures who care about FairPlay.
We know that French Letter customers are special. You care about protecting yourself and your partner by choosing our superb condoms, made in Germany to the most rigorous standards for safety and reliability.
You care about good taste, preferring our gorgeous jewel coloured packets to those other drab little boxes. With such pretty packs, you won’t mind keeping your protection on show.
And you care about your world. You probably stock plenty of FairTrade goods in your home already. Now you can enjoy FairPlay in the bedroom too. Because the natural latex used in every French Letter condom is harvested under sustainable and Fair Trade conditions. That means the rubber producers are paid a royalty to help improve their lives.
French Letter condoms source latex through FairDeal Trading, the only company in the world paying a Fairtrade premium for latex rubber. What to know what a difference using French Letter Condoms makes? French Letter Fair Deal condoms are for guilt free lovers who want to feel good in every way when they make love.

eventual ecological net loss, on account of the well intentioned but flimsy condoms inefficacy contributing to more humans/consumers/resource depletion

"The wearer will feel less guilty about exploiting rubber-workers, so he can focus more wholly on his guilt about penetrating another human being for his own pleasure"

been thinking a lot about the concepts of CRAFT and DESIGN, thinking about them as aesthetic values expressed through manufacture & consumption

the origin point of this line of thought is this chair

http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/upload/162551867770585438_jycNLBYR_c.jpg

lounge rocker designed by vladimir kagan, with crewel embroidery by his wife erica wilson

would sit in

i think design and craft are, at best, inseparable and mutually informed by each other, but there is something interesting, to me, about the tension that can exist between the two

i think of 'pure design' as being rather conceptual in origin -- it starts with an idea and becomes manifest -- expressing a sort of top-down movement from idea to physical form, a sort of emanation from an ideal

whereas i'm thinking of craft moves in the opposite direction -- that it begins with the concrete, in specific materials, technologies, techniques, and procedures -- and seeks to provoke an aesthetic response out of the manipulation of these elemental components

this is by no means a developed argument, just thinkin baot thangs over here

you should talk with ari about this next time youre down here, she wrote her senior thesis about the development of the 'mid-century modern' aesthetic (in sweden specifically) -- ie "high design" -- as a nationalist gesture theoretically rooted in swedish 'craft' forms (a process that dates back to late 19th century in vackrare vardagsvara &c.)

one distinction might be that design is a kind of formal language and craft is about technical knowledge?

i'd definitely be into talking to ari about this stuff! i think it's interesting how certain elements of craft / craftsmanship associated with the MCM aesthetic are highly prized now -- woodworking, for example -- while others like fiber arts are not -- or if they are appreciated, it's as kitsch

it seems like "craftsmanship" is used to describe an inherent virtue of an thing, but to describe something as "looking like a craft project" is derogatory

i don't know if this distinction is gendered somehow but it might be??

heh i think its totally gendered

also relevant to my thinking about this is the fiber art of diane itter

http://www.imamuseum.org/sites/default/files/mars/82/8202ce20-b56d-49a9-bd0d-5c51d9fac4d1.jpg

these are entirely composed of linen thread, using only double half-hitch knots -- it feels, for me, like there is such a deep intimacy with the materials, it's really quite remarkable. the works are really quite small, but they are dense flat surfaces that clearly express these conceptual flights of color and pattern and movement -- clearly design! -- but the cascade of fringe reveals the elemental components of its crafting

I feel like "craft project" is an indicator of the "arts and crafts" hobby-horse junk that accompanies "crafting" magazines and indicates an amateur effort. Honestly, it makes me think of scrapbooking, which I tend to associate with suburban housewives.

If you speak to someone's craft, however, it's usually an expression of a skill in creating things, although not necessarily with a polished sense of design. There's a lot of hand-made, functional furniture or clothing that is extremely well-made, but not necessarily with a particular aesthetic. The design seems either cobbled together or inherited.

The combination of craft & design should be highly prized, imo. I love furniture and clothing that is very well-designed, but it's a lot more likely to be factory-made by non-artisans, even if the quality control is very high. I think bespoke suits are probably an example of excellent craft but little design, as many of them are tailored to a traditional template.

Then again, there are plenty of designs that aren't very good or are aesthetically unappealing.

http://macramecollective.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Diane-Itter-Peruvian-Split-detail-1983-knotting-linen-9x17.jpg

i'm just posting this detail of another itter piece because it just blows my mind.

tiny tiny knots! so so tiny

i don't necessarily think craft is incompatible with industrial process

or is it? it's a good question

I don't think it is! Many very skilled individuals work in industrialized industry, and it's a popular stereotype to think that the reason things are sewn/assembled in countries with much lower wages is due to a cheap, barely-skilled labor force and that americans may not want to do the work. In reality, it's often a highly-skilled labor force, especially for fashion labels with quality control.