Food

We need to bring some nibbles to a memorial service for a couple of old friends who died recently. So we went into the local bakery and discussed choices with the baker and then ordered the needed amount of small pastries to be ready for pickup on Saturday. He even gave us an extra dozen for "free".

Last Christmas I wanted a goose. This is no longer a popular choice around here, most stores only carry turkey and ham in quantity. We went into the local butcher shop and they ordered one for us in time for the holiday. On another occasion I wanted a duck and my daughter, who lives in a slightly less populated suburb than I do, went to the local farmer who had one already prepared. If he hadn't found one in his refrigerator he said it would be ready in an hour or so!

Wood

At one time I was an avid recorder player (vertical wooden flute) and ordered two different models from a well-known English maker. It took 18 months until they finished the order. One of them needed a bit of modification, so I took it with me on a trip to England and stopped at the workshop to drop it off. I discovered why there was such a long backlog. A worker was hand fitting two sections together. He chalked up one part fitted them and looked to see where the chalk had rubbed off, then took some sandpaper and made an infinitesimal change. This was repeated dozens of times. The same firm makes plastic injection molded instruments by the thousands. The handmade ones sell for about 500 times the plastic ones. This illustrates the two extremes.

I used to make some of my own furniture. At the time there was an old family business in the Bronx that catered to woodworkers (I just looked them up and they seem to have moved to Florida and gone web-based). So I drove there (only about 15 miles) and went through their lumber yard and picked out some beautiful pieces of walnut and mahogany for my projects. They also had many exotic hardwoods, but those were too rich for my budget. Home centers still sell furniture grade lumber, but only oak, maple and pine and only in narrow widths. I did buy some veneer from them on other occasions and then getting nicely matched pieces is even more important. I wish I could say my veneering efforts matched the quality of the supplies, but this was one of my failures... Some things really required expertise and specialized equipment.

Clothing

The women in my family are all into the fabric arts, so I've been able to "commission" several hand knit sweaters and quilts. Of course sometimes they make what they want as a gift and that's nice too. Being surprised has its rewards as well. They make more than we all can use and give away a steady supply as gifts to all the new babies that seem to be appearing in our circle. I've never heard of a single recipient (the parents, if not the babies) who wasn't thrilled.

Media

Even though I've tried to focus on the practical (recorders being the exception), much of what we have around the house that is handmade falls into the "arts and crafts" category. So we have several ceramic pots and sculptures made by friends as well as various paintings and prints bought from the artists themselves.

Recently I decided to package up the essays on my web site into a book I could give to people. I found, what can be seen as the prototype of my new semi-custom enterprise model - a demand publisher. Using modern technology this firm can take my formatted electronic file and produce a single copy of a hardbound book for a price similar to what one would pay in a store. This will be a boon to poets and novelists who will no longer have to order hundreds of copies from a printer and then fill up their basement with them while they try to sell them over time. Multiple copies cost the same as the single copy price, unless one wants to buy in the range of conventional publishing in which case prices get cheaper. The only limitations on what I could do concerned the actual page size. This is restricted to about a dozen of the most common formats. Even commercial printers impose such restrictions in most cases.

Future

Technology already exists (and is being used) to create custom fabric designs using something similar to inkjet printing. With this capability one will be able to design one's own fabric and order enough for a single garment or so, just as I have done with my book.

Modern sewing machines already have computerized software that will accept scanned in pictures and will generate embroidery patterns that they can execute. I expect to see more decorated clothing using this capability as prices for the machines come down. Perhaps there will even be a rise in home clothing making, especially as budgets get tight. A computer capability that will allow printing out of a pattern for cutting the pieces of a garment to measure would complete the process and remove the need for the skill to resize commercially obtained patterns.

I think there is similar technology available for decorating pottery, which would allow for custom designed dinnerware. I know there are inkjet printers for putting edible pictures made of icing on cakes, so why not for ceramic glazes? Many communities already offer ceramics classes and thus have the appropriate firing equipment.

I've just heard of a company that is planning to decentralize car assembly and do away with huge factories. With standardized parts one could mix and match and get exactly what one wants in a vehicle. We will see if his idea turns out to be practical.

Look around your environment and see how little of it exists that isn't mass produced. We may be cogs in the big machine of modern life, but we should be able to put some of our own preferences into our individual environment. We may be cogs, but at least we can be brightly colored ones.

Let's hear your stories, or ideas for a new age of responsiveness.