[Jewelry making - Article 00078] - Re: [Orchid] Negotiating with Retailers

[dori]

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>         In today's market the problem is even more acute.  There is
>     little appreciation among the members of generations X and Y for
>     handcraft. Instant gratification has become, in all things, the
>     order of the day. 

    as a member of "Generation X/Y" (ew god, can't believe i owned up to
    or said that) i beg to differ, slightly... 

    it's not that people of my generation have less appreciation for
    handcraft - on the contrary, many of us HAVE picked up a craft, or
    further explored an art, or said the heck with it and decided to
    attempt it full time in lieu of a wall street career - in fact, i
    know many people who won't buy or wear anything that's not handmade.
     i know people who wouldn't be caught dead in a piece of jewelry
    'made in china' unless it was traditional, bright-yellow-18k-gold
    work that cost a fortune.  there's practically a crusade for the
    handcrafted. 

    of course, i DO understand what you meant - it's true, you can buy
    stones cut in india for a fraction of the price you can buy them
    here in the states, you can buy duplicates of expensive designer
    jewelry in thailand (again for the fraction of the price). 

    but what you can't buy is the originality of an artisan - the
    difference in buying overseas or forking out the additional money to
    support an artist here at home is that you know from start to finish
    where everything came from, whose hands it was in, and the fair
    process in which it was produced (unfortunately, for the majority of
    people this really doesn't matter, agreed.  but it's not just gen
    x/y that wants things now.  after all, we're not the generation that
    invented the TV dinner - you did, and we were raised on it.  ;-) 

    now, it's just too bad very few of us can actually afford to support
    that on a regular basis, which is why we often resort to buying
    cheap replicas produced overseas - believe me, there have been many
    times i've thought to myself "well, maybe when i'm 50 years old,
    i'll be able to afford to give that guy a wad of dough and
    commission him to make me something no one else has in the manner
    that he is so well-known and revered for."  these days tho, if i've
    got a wad of dough together, chances are it's because it's going to
    my landlord. 

dori



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