Craft in America

Huge industrial cities in their day were situated on the river. So many of these towns now have transformed into what we call the creative economy so they've figured out how to, like Amesbury has, take an old mill town and transform it for the new economy where these places are welcoming to the artist who sells on Etsy to a writer like myself and you know, to small you know, non-chain restaurateurs. You know I think there's many ways that we're seeing that craft, handmade goods, locally produced goods are absolutely impacting the national economy in large part because of what that's doing for the local economies. iIn this day and age of huge numbers in mass production there might be more of an opportunity than ever for handmade goods as well as sort of an answer to mass production. High-end product is going to last longer and it's going to retain its meaning to you. That do-it-yourself movement at the base level means that the people who are engaged in it are trying to invest their lives with meaning, that they're not living throwaway lives, that they're not living disposable lives, they're not creating an excess amount of trash for the planet to have to deal with. In the Internet age when the audience is there to be found, I think for craft and handmade goods, it's headed in the right direction. I think that people engaged in making those things are now able to find a broader audience than ever before. Etsy is a perfect example. For gift-giving there's nothing better than Etsy. It's not like you just walked into the store and grabbed the first thing you saw off the shelf. It really sends a message that you care about the person that you're buying something for if you went and found a one-of-a-kind unique item. The choices that we make as consumers help define who we are. The kinds of things you choose to fill your life up with have a lot to say about your own personality and one of the keys to being an American is creating your own individual identity and one of the ways that we do that I think is you know the ways that we spend our time and the things we spend our money on.