Talk to any passionate craftsperson, and you’ll hear about the joy they take in what they make. We’ve interviewed watchmakers, workwear designers, a toolmaker and our very own Jonathan Reid, so that you can read some typical perspectives in this article.
There are many personal reasons to enjoy a craft, but something universal is the connection between maker and product that comes with making things by hand, which is achieved through a combination of mental and physical work.
A craft career is often life-defining for the relatively few people who pursue one. And even among hobbyists, practising an art or craft has been linked to higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction. We value our crafts – but are we valuing them highly enough?
Problems of progress
Society has not always valued the joy of craft, nor the knowledge, skills and care that go into handmade things.
Since the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing theory has distanced workers from their products. Division of labour, an old idea recalibrated for factories by thinkers including Adam Smith, split up workforces so that each person specialised in one repetitive task. Most workers had only a small role in creating each product – such as attaching heads to pins, or placing cherries on top of cakes.
20th century theorists took work management further. Taylorism, an approach to large-scale production, aimed to distil physical labour into the smallest, most efficient movements. Later, kaizen (which means ‘continuous improvement’) was used to iteratively streamline production during the post-war ‘Japanese economic miracle’. Many skilled tasks were automated, displacing workers into service jobs, management or ‘knowledge work’.
For better and for worse, these developments gave us the modern world. Everyday things became cheaper, and a few shareholders made a fortune. But the downsides included widespread loss of manufacturing skills and a mass demoralisation of workers. Products lost their connection to the hands and minds of their makers.
Hand, mind and heart
Whereas knowledge workers are generally believed to use their brains, and assembly line workers often use their hands, a traditional craftsperson routinely uses both mental and manual power to complete all sorts of tasks.
Rebecca and Craig Struthers are the minds and hands behind Struthers Watchmakers. They spend their time absorbed in the intricate work of making and designing watches, and even creating watch movements.
“These tasks that simultaneously use significant mental and physical energy are so cathartic,” says Rebecca.
“There’s no space in your mind for anything else so you can lose yourself in this little world with the object you’re working on.”
Robin Wood first pursued a passion for woodworking, before arriving at the craft of toolmaking and founding Wood Tools. Last year, Robin’s company became the first in thirty years to forge axes here in Sheffield.
“I think working with hands and brain is what humans were designed to do over millennia so it’s no surprise that it feels good,” he says.
“A fulfilling life can be had in an office too but needs to be balanced by some physical activity outside work. The holy grail is finding work that involves hands, eye and heart. With this there’s no need to balance it out with another activity in our free time.”
Every day, we witness the personal benefits of a craft career among our scissors-makers at Ernest Wright.
“We get the opportunity to interact with every pair of scissors that goes out the door, and with many of the people who buy our scissors,” says Jonathan Reid, one of our most experienced putters.
“Manipulating the shapes of the blades is a very subtle process that takes place over many grinding and cold smithing processes. The work can be hard, but you never feel like a faceless drone.”
Why we undervalue our crafts
Craftspeople can benefit mentally – and some might even say spiritually – from making things by hand. But strangely, the enjoyment of a craft often gives rise to a mindset that makes it harder for us to stay in business.
Craft-loving customers appreciate the holistic worth of a handmade item. They know they’re getting a product made with skill and care, and that their purchase contributes to the craft and supports the maker. They decide how much they’re willing to pay based on how much they think the product is worth, fairly and simply.
Producers complicate matters, if studies are to be believed, by charging less for products that we’ve enjoyed making (and more for the work we don’t enjoy). We self-impose a sort of tax on the joy we take in our craft – even though customers are not put off – thank goodness – by our perceived enjoyment.
We should be careful to avoid underselling the handmade things that bring us joy in the making, because we can easily risk leaving ourselves underfunded. It’s worth remembering how much our traditional approach benefits our customers, at the same time as making our lives better.
Ben Sears and Becca Barton, co-founders of the workwear brand Pajotten, take an especial delight in building relationships with their customers and serving them closely – and the benefit is shared.
“Sometimes we’re lucky enough to work on garments with really specific requirements, where the customer is like me in that they want something to carry certain items or with certain dimensions,” says Ben.
“Those are the most satisfying people to please, where it comes down to some really small detail.”
The mutually beneficial connections between product, maker and customer are absent from the mass-produced items that fill our lives, clutter our homes, and pile up in landfill.
Heritage Crafts currently lists 62 crafts as critically endangered in the UK, while a further 84 are endangered. It’s a stark reminder that we mustn’t undervalue the things we make just because we enjoy making them. As we’ve seen, mass manufacturers have done plenty of undervaluing on our behalves over the last few centuries.
