#03 – How Do We Tell If a Product Is Truly Handmade?
One of the questions I get asked most often at my market stall is this:
“Did you make these yourself?”
What, for some people, forms a clear picture—a logical sequence of ideas: market stall, handmade product, artisan (or whatever definition you identify with: craftsperson, maker, designer, etc.)—is instead perceived by most observers as nothing more than a pre-made product.
The question that naturally follows is:
Is the product I'm looking at truly handmade? And how can I know for sure?
Because if defining craftsmanship is already complex, determining how handmade an object actually is becomes an even greater challenge. It's a dilemma for those looking in from the outside, but it's also a dilemma for those who live and work within this world. From the customer's perspective, the question becomes: How can I be sure that the only thing added to the product on the table wasn't just the price tag?
The reason is simple. There is no grading scale, no chart that tells us what percentage of an object is truly handmade. Ten percent? Thirty? Eighty? There is no shared standard or official measure. Even when talking with other artisans, makers, or independent producers, it quickly becomes clear that everyone has their own understanding of what craftsmanship actually means.
- For a better reading experience, you can also find this article on the Substack App -
 |
| How It Feels to Be Asked, “Did You Make These Yourself?” |
Control Analysis
Let's start with one assumption: no one truly creates from nothing.
We don't expect a woodworker to personally cut down a tree, a tailor to break their back harvesting cotton in a field, or a jeweler to wake up in the morning, put on a miner's helmet with a little headlamp, and head underground with a pickaxe in search of gold. Most of the time, we begin with a material that has already been processed by someone else, prepared in the form and dimensions best suited to allow us to carry out our own work with care: creating an object or a piece of work.
The first distinction lies in working with a material in its raw state or in a refined one. In deciding what to make from it. A woodworker who needs to build the legs of a cabinet can buy a rough board and cut it into strips, deciding how to saw it, how to finish it, and which sections of the wood to use. On the other hand, they could simply purchase strips that have already been planed, cut, and prepared to size. One choice is not morally superior to the other; the difference lies in how much control each one gives over the final result.
Someone who starts with raw material can manage every aspect of the board, correct imperfections, and adapt the wood to their own needs. In the second case, they might receive a warped strip, discover that the wood has been stored improperly, or find a knot exactly where the greatest stress will be placed. They are forced to spend time correcting mistakes that someone else should already have addressed upstream. To some extent, they must adapt to work that has already been done by others.
The real challenge begins when it becomes difficult to understand which parts of the process were actually carried out by the artisan.
I know someone who works with natural gemstones starting from rough stone found in nature. He cuts it, shapes it, polishes it, and finally sets each stone into brass frames that he also makes himself. To an untrained eye, however, that finished stone may look exactly the same as one that was purchased already cut and polished from a supplier.
This leads to the first real difficulty: Can I distinguish an object made entirely by hand from one produced through an industrial process? While the person working with their hands can visualize every step involved, the customer often sees only the finished object, making it difficult to recognize the true value of the craftsmanship behind it.
Analysis of Assembly
Let's move on to the subject of assembly.
Imagine someone who buys beads, pre-cut stones, and ready-made metal components to create a piece of jewelry. Are they creating a handmade product?
They build a structure that brings all the individual elements together. Their work is practical. It is done by hand. But the real question is: where does the heart of the work actually lie? In the knots? In the selection of the materials? In the composition of the final form?
This is where an existential doubt emerges—one that is impossible to ignore for anyone who creates every design from scratch or starts with raw materials. The knots, which represent most of the manual work involved, are certainly evidence of craftsmanship. But are they the main course, or are they the side dish?
If every defining element of the piece has been purchased ready-made and the artisan's role consists only of assembling them, something changes. That doesn't mean the work disappears or becomes less valuable. It means its nature changes. The place where the value is created shifts.
This is an attempt to shed light on the question that divides entire groups of makers—what I jokingly call the Percentage of Handmadeness. If my piece cannot exist without a collection of components that have already been bought and manufactured in their final form, can I still honestly describe it as handmade? How much control do I really have over the piece?
From the outside, customers rarely see this. Yet among artisans, this moral and personal debate is always alive.
Imagine a jewelry maker who shapes a decorative brass element from a sheet of metal and then incorporates it into a macramé necklace. Another maker purchases a similar decorative element and only creates the knotwork around it. The assembly technique—in this case, the ancient craft of macramé—is practiced by both. And yet the final price displayed on the table carries a different weight. The first maker will inevitably charge more for each piece because they have combined manufacturing with assembly in order to preserve the soul of an original design.
The second challenge: Is it worth investing more time in originality for products that could be made entirely through assembly, if the customer cannot perceive the difference?
Analysis of Uniqueness
The same question arises when machines begin replacing much of the manual work.
On one side are those who argue that the use of a machine automatically removes craftsmanship. On the other are those who believe that anything can be considered handmade as long as there is a person behind the process. Personally, I find it difficult to agree with either position. It would make little sense to expect a woodworker to keep using a hand drill after the invention of the power drill. At the same time, a CNC machine performs almost the entire physical process on its own, leaving the human being with little more than the design and the machine's setup.
So let's shift the discussion entirely.
The problem is not the machine itself. The problem is understanding how much that machine determines the uniqueness of the object.
If a woodworker builds a cabinet using modern tools, I still see it as craftsmanship. But if that same woodworker produces one hundred and fifty identical brooches with a laser cutter, then, in my view, we have entered a different category. Not because the work has less value, but because the center of the work has shifted once again. It becomes a design project. Small-scale production. Independent production. A limited edition. The outcome is a series of identical objects.
All of these are perfectly legitimate definitions, and none of them should be understood as diminishing the value of the work. They simply belong to a different category.
The same reasoning applies to someone who turns their illustrations into posters or prints their designs onto T-shirts. There is design, there is skill, there is work—but the center of the value no longer lies in transforming the material. Instead, it lies in designing something that can be replicated.
The third challenge: If one of the defining characteristics of a handmade object is its uniqueness, does it still make sense to produce it with perfect serial precision?
Commenti
Posta un commento