How Crafts Will Survive the Robot Century
By: Valerie Schafer Franklin
Tags: Handmade, Consumerism, Makers, Craft, Craftsmanship

Walnut Studiolo Leather Workshop. Photo by Cineastas PDX.

How Crafts Will Survive the Robot Century

On the value of makers and making in the age of factories and robots

Calvin nails it, yet again.

Craftsman vs Factory

So the other night my husband and I watched the 2018 documentary “Takumi: a 60,000 Hour Story on the Survival of Craft” by Chef’s Table director Clay Jeter.

As a family currently surviving on old-fashioned craftsmanship, the subtitle alone more than piqued our interest. What would they have to say about the future survival of crafts? As we watched the film, which was as atmospheric and artistically beautiful as the Emmy-nominated Chef’s Table series, we were enthralled with the idea of a 1200-year-old family business specializing in all-wood building construction, and the Japanese concept of a takumi — a master craftsperson.

In the documentary, the interviews with the Curator of Craft at the Smithsonian and the personal stories of the Japanese master craftspeople were intriguing and thought-provoking.

But as the film progressed, we noticed something odd. First they showcased ancient Japanese craftsmanship, and then modern artists using ancient materials. Then it became a car commercial, romanticizing the angular beauty of modern Japanese car production lines.

There is a certain kind of symmetrical beauty to a robotic assembly line.

Although we can appreciate the elegance of a clean factory, the ending seemed odd — until we researched the backstory of the film, and sure enough, it was almost entirely funded by Lexus. We felt cheated. It was as if we’d bought a mug on Etsy thinking it had been wheel-thrown only to find “Made in China” stamped on the bottom.

In the end, the documentary’s thesis seems to have been compromised by its funder. In order to finance a documentary honoring craftsmanship, they had to make it into a car commercial. And the conclusion of the documentary seemed to be: in order to keep craftsmanship alive, we need to change the definition of what craftsmanship is, expanding it to include all kinds of work in the future. Now car inspectors can be craftspeople, too.

It felt a little dirty to watch. But it was thought-provoking in an important way, prompting us to ask, but really, what is craftsmanship and how is it going to survive in an era of car commercials?

Japanese craftsmen at work in the Lexus factory.

The Current Craft Trend: What is “Craft” Anyway?

There is no doubt that people are interested in crafters and craftsmanship and that it is even trendy at the moment. As evidence, there are locally-made organizations like “Portland Made” or “Texas by Texans” in just about every major city and US state. Obviously there is Etsy, the “handmade marketplace,” which has grown into a cutthroat half-billion dollar company publicly-traded on the NASDAQ. But do we even agree on what “handmade” means?

There is a range between handmade and handcrafted, from a glue-encrusted macaroni sculpture to an artisan-carved ceramic masterpiece. Likewise, there is a range in factory-produced products, from barely-passable mass-produced crap to elegantly-engineered precision components made with robotic accuracy and speed.

To make things even more confusing, marketers at companies like McDonalds and Starbucks seem to have broadened the definition of “handcrafted” to include anything that was touched by human hands, ever. Which is pretty much everything under the sun. It’s like the unfortunate trend of greenwashing. (Can we call it “hand-washing”?)

And yet, isn’t a person passionate about coffee who fermented the green beans at the source and transformed them into a beautifully roasted coffee with notes of blueberries a craftsperson? Is pouring an espresso shot with a free human hand into a beautiful Rorschach-shaped foam a craft?

Photo by wu yi on Unsplash

Obscuring and diluting the meaning of craftspeople is as damaging as anything else in this line of work, but there’s also been the gradual and pervasive cheapening of materials and products globally, such that most people can’t even recognize handcrafted quality from cynical fakery.

Factory designers are brilliant at hiding the cheapness of their products. All they need to do is make sure it lasts longer than the return policy. If it cost the same and shipped as quickly, I believe people would choose to buy local, small-business, craftsman-made every time.

But it’s never that simple, is it? And given the range of products, given a choice of “looks handmade, is cheap, and ships tomorrow for free” versus “so beautifully handmade it looks factory-made, takes 10 weeks and costs extra to ship”, how many would actually choose the latter?

Which one is factory-made and which one is hand-made? One of these is $6.95 and one is $24.

Etsy has struggled with this definition spectacularly over the years. When a graphic artist creates a pattern on the computer and gets that printed by a company on a factory-made t-shirt, is that handmade? Whether you agree it is or not, it is eligible for the handmade marketplace.

And yet, very few makers can make every component of every thing. We are leathercrafters but we rely on suppliers for our metal rivets and screws, which are necessary components of what we make. If we cut a piece of leather from a hide, shape it, dye it and finish it, then attach factory-made hardware, is it handmade?

Once you start drilling down on a definition of what “handmade”, “craft”, or “craftsperson” is, the line gets blurry quickly, and the definitions get more and more complex and wordy. More often than not, like the US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said when trying to define pornography, I know it when I see it is still one of the few working rules. Which in the end is just subjective and arbitrary. All that matters is, what components of “handmade” matter to you?

The Craftsperson’s Edge

Attempting to somewhat answer this question is another show we’ve been enjoying lately, The Repair Shop. In this UK show, people bring in treasured heirlooms and family possessions to a team of restoration experts for refurbishment.

The repair shop of your dreams.

The repair people are clearly skilled specialists and romantics at heart, and the focus of the show becomes less about the object, and more about its personal story to the owners. When the restorers present back to the anxious owners a beautifully refurbished third-generation violin that had once played in a concentration camp by a prisoner, or a carefully re-stuffed baby doll from an elderly woman’s childhood, tears spring to everyone’s eyes and the owners walk away, emotional and grateful.

This showcases a unique skill that only craftspeople could bring. Only skilled craftspeople could repair an individual vintage piece or a historical artifact. There is no factory in the world that would get fired up to fix one out-of-stock baby doll, at least not affordably — in this case, the craftsmanship would actually be cheaper than a factory.

But once again, there’s a problem with the beautifully-choreographed show when you research the backstory. When those owners pick up their returned possessions, nobody actually pays for the repairs. With the sheer number of highly-skilled man-hours involved in painstakingly restoring a painting punched with pencil holes by children, or rewiring a vintage pinball machine, how many people could actually afford to pay for this level of craftsmanship?

Painstakingly rebuilding a sentimental ceramic bulldog statue in The Repair Shop.

And yet, the very existence of the restoration experts’ careers, the teddy bear hospital ward and all, proves there will always be a need for hands-on skills. That’s where craftsmanship will always have the edge: there will always be the need for that one, special-purpose little thing.

Casting Off

There’s a saying that at most you can only pick two: “good,” “cheap,” or “fast.”

Factories get fired up to make things in big quantities, and their resulting products will get you at least the “cheap” or the “fast” part of the equation.

But we are all unique individuals, and we have particular needs for “good” things that express our individuality and meet our special circumstances. The craftsperson provides a unique value to customers for their skills and dexterousness, and the ability to cater to individuals, special circumstances, and small quantities.

It’s how “craft beer” has survived and thrived all these years, with the commodity beer makers of the world finally admitting, we can’t compete. They’ve bought and consolidated craft beer companies and hidden them under their corporate wings, but new craft breweries keep popping up every day, fulfilling a demand that they still can’t fill by their very nature.

Makers may struggle with the cheap and fast parts of the equation, but they aren’t going the way of the dinosaur. To survive, some are having to raise their prices to pay for the free shipping and sale discounts demanded by the modern marketplace. And in response we’ve found, over a crafting career of over ten years, that caring customers are still willing to wait and pay for quality crafts.

And that’s where we see the future of craftsmanship: in specialization, in customization, and in personalization. It will be in matching the purposefulness and care of owners and makers, in a personal and pleasant transaction. Makers will carve out their own space in the market, catering to the people for whom the purchase itself is as personal as the time and attention we put into making it.