Why I choose handmade
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why handmade matters so much.
One of my favourite moments of the day is to rise with the early morning bird calls, while you know most of the world is still sleeping. I make a bee-line for the coffee machine. Weighing the coffee beans, filling the portafilter… these movements are automatic. But then I pause. Time to select the cup.
I scroll along the shelf and choose a small white mug with a tapered shape, a neat little handle and two cobalt blue brushstrokes on either side. At least, that's what you see.
I see a fellow craftsman eager to show me around his little studio nestled into the hillside in Shigaraki. I remember the small anagama kiln he built beneath his carport and the pride in his voice as he showed me pieces made by his son. We fumbled through broken English and Google translate, swapping photos of our studios and laughing at how different, and somehow similar, our worlds are.
We couldn't explain everything to each other, but we understood enough. He didn't need lots of words to show me the kiln he'd built, or to point out his favourite pieces to make, and I didn't need many words to understand why he was proud of them. Ceramics was our shared language.
Every time I use this mug, without realising it, I revisit that conversation.
This is what draws me to handmade. Every piece begins with one pair of hands before finding another. I like to think that in every piece I make, there's a trace of the season it was made in, or the music playing while I trimmed, or the animated conversation of a visitor to the studio mid-throw. None of those things are visible, but they feel present nonetheless.
It makes me wonder what pieces of myself become attached to the things I make. Perhaps we haven't shared a conversation like the one I had in Japan, but over time my work will collect stories of its own. You’ll remember who gave it to you, the friend who always reaches for that particular mug, your many morning coffees, the house you were in when you used to drink from it each morning.
Maybe, ten years from now, someone will reach for one of my cups without thinking and remember something about their own life.
When I reach for this mug from Japan now, it’s not so much about the piece itself but the person who made it, and the moment shared with them. The mug is a reminder that for a brief moment our lives overlapped.
Next time you drink from one of my cups, eat from one of my bowls or switch on a wall light I've made, I hope it's more than just another object in your home. I hope it becomes part of your everyday. And perhaps, years from now, it reminds you of someone, somewhere, or a time in your own life.
From my hands to yours.
