Bob,
Great examples. You hit the head right on the nail! ;-)
If I could do as the quilter did (alas, I'm not a receptionist), I
would do so also. The pleasure and satisfaction of spending enough
time on a frame to make it purposful and unique at the same time is
satisfaction enough to feed the soul and give purpose to life. The
only standards that I have lowered in order to continue as I do are my
standard of living. There are other ways to approach the situation,
but the system I abide by works for me.
Brian Baylis
La Mesa, CA
> How does making a profit hinder an artisan from producing quality
work?
Oh, Nick, Nick, are we stirring the pot again? Hee hee... I know how
much
we both love to see these interesting questions debated on the
list ;-)
I agree with Doug completely, and I've seen far more real-world
evidence to
back up what he's saying than I would care to acknowledge. So many
talented
and meticulous artists and craftsmen have priced themselves out of the
market
because they they worked to their own (perhaps unreasonably high)
standards,
therefore they had trouble selling their work at a living wage or
attracting the
requisite number of buyers. It then became necessary for them to
either
lower their standards or subsidize their art with another job that
kept the bills
paid, thus relegating their one true love to what others might
call "hobby"
status.
Having a primary job (like Berry's bike shop) sometimes works out well
for
all concerned... the buyer gets a far better deal than he would
otherwise (how
much would a frame cost if the builder only produced three or four
frames a
year with no other source of income, would he be able to sell enough
$15,000-20,000 frames to stay in business?) and the seller is free to
work to whatever
level of quality or detail he sees fit without nagging concerns that
the bills
will not get paid.
Sometimes the fields of endeavor are unrelated (an example might be
Richard
Moon's day job at Intel(?), with framebuilding on the side), or are
somewhat
related (Berry's bike shop/framebuilding) or perhaps they are the very
same
product, differing only in the price tier (when I had my pottery
studio I produced
high priced but still unprofitable gallery porcelain and lower priced
bread
and butter stoneware, both at the same time. The porcelain gave me
fulfillment and satisfaction, the stoneware gave me a roof over my
head).
> If it was in fact true; their best work would be free.
This is sometimes true, in fact perhaps far more often than many folks
in our
profit-oriented society might suspect. I knew a wonderful quilter
who
worked as a receptionist and gave her quilts away only to those she
felt would
appreciate them. She would spend several hundred hours on a quilt
and for her it
was all about love, so she was not about to hand it over to strangers
for
money.
Bob Hovey Columbus, GA USA
How does making a profit hinder an artisan from producing quality work?
I have heard this mentioned from several other sources and have a
difficult
time comprehending this thought process.
If it was in fact true; their best work would be free.
Nick Zatezalo Atlanta,Ga.USA
************************************** See what's free at