I'm thinking a lot about where I'm spending my money these days. After my Sears experience, I don't want to shop at those heartless, big box stores, which sell products manufactured anonymously in China. I want to feel good about where I'm shopping. I want to spend money with businesses that care about me and represent my values. I want to support local, sustainable businesses that sell high quality products with ingredients that are locally sourced. It makes me feel connected to my neighbors and my community. I want to support artisans and craftspeople who infuse their products with integrity and even love. Using their products makes me feel special, so instead of just be shopping, I will be supporting things I believe in, and that will make me feel good about myself.
And not just just on American Express Small Business Saturdays!
But what does it mean to shop local?
Some states have been printing their own local currencies, like Massachusetts' BerkShares, which can only be used in the Berkshire region of the state. You can go to a bank in that area and buy some BerkShares that you can then only spend in the local businesses, so you will choose to support those businesses instead of those suspicious national chains. It's like buying carnival tickets --- it makes you buy more popcorn because the tickets are useless outside the carnival. It makes you "go locavore" as I read in an article. Of the roughly 110 local currencies trading in the U.S., California is in the lead with 15 different currencies. Berkeley, of course, has 2 different kinds ---- I like the one named "Berkeley Bread", which I believe is now defunct.
Maybe you can use your local dough at one of those trendy "cash mobs" you might have heard about. Instead of meeting somewhere to break into seemingly spontaneous group choreography, a group of people agree to all descend upon a local store and each spend at least $20 there at a certain date and time. It's a win-win: The store owner gets a nice cash infusion and some publicity, and the cash mobsters walk away feeling smug.
And what does it mean to be handcrafted?
Everything now is being advertised at handcrafted. Handcrafted chocolates, handcrafted burgers. handcrafted beer. Not that generic, low class stuff that comes from a machine! Please. My mom is into handmade salt. Isn't salt produced by evaporation or mining? Handcrafted mining? I just heard an ad on the radio for California Hand-Grown Avocados. Are all the others machine grown? What's next, hand grown chickens? I just googled it. You can get handcrafted chicken coops, handcrafted chicken sausage, and handcrafted chicken backpacks. So what's the big fascination with handcrafted? The dictionary definition is "made by hand, rather than by machine." Somehow I feel all warm and fuzzy thinking that some really nice person handcrafted that coffee I just drank. But an iPad is made by human hands. So is it handcrafted? It's not quite indy and edgy enough to qualify, is it? It's too sleek and perfect.
And really, why buy what you can just make yourself?
Or better yet, have the kids make it! When I went to art school, I heard lots of people look at the results of our deep, personal explorations and say, "My 2 year old could do that." Well, now I have my own kids, and ya know what? It's true! Your 2 year old CAN do that! And so can mine! And kids should really start pulling their weight financially by the age of 2. My kids make me stuff all the time. And they make A LOT of it! My 6 year old can fill an entire sketchbook in an afternoon. Mother's Day was just a bonanza of the handcrafted, imperfect, but personal and meaningful. That drawing of batman that now adorns the wall of my family room (not hanging, but actually drawn on the wall itself) is actually a handcrafted mural full of integrity and social commentary ---- a personalization of an anonymous wall; an experiment in tagging ---- so I was grateful to my son for adding that piece to our collection.
And really, why is handcrafted by a child less valuable than handcrafted by an adult? Especially when the results are often indistinguishable. Is it a matter of scarcity? I mean does the sheer quantity of a child's output make the result less rare, and thus, less valuable? Do we need rarity in our handcrafted? Do I care how many beaded necklaces that lady sells through her Etsy shop? And if I pitch my kids' drawings anonymously, just saying they're done by an "up and coming" young artist with a primitive style (rather than by an actual child) will I manage to not disrupt the handcrafted mystique, and successfully separate people from their money with all that good will of supporting their local artisan?
West Elm now sells Etsy products. I wonder if we can get a mass distribution deal there. And we could outsource production to other children when mine have been exhausted. Eventually, we can have children in China produce huge stacks of drawings, because with the internet, who really cares where anyone is….
Oh wait, that's not locavore… Ok, but I'm still going to start demanding all my goods and services be handcrafted from now on. And I want handcrafted legal documents protecting me from the consequences of poor quality.
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