If you want to improve your gut level understanding of quality, nothing beats seeing, touching and working with beautiful handcrafted objects.
This stand for fountain pens was handmade from hardwood by craftsman Bill Jackman. Bill makes these stands one at a time because he enjoys it. Each one is different. The design changes as he learns more from customers, works with different types of wood, and experiments.
The craftsman’s view is to create one object at a time which perfectly suits its purpose.
Contrast this with the commodity mindset, which seeks to create many replaceable (and often disposable) objects at as low a cost as possible.
Excellence
If you are excellent at what you do, you are not a commodity. If you work for a company, you may or may not realize that it could cost them six months or more of your salary to find and train someone else to fill your role. Even so, this person will not have your personal and institutional knowledge, skills and expertise.
The inspirational quality of handmade objects
It’s been said that one of the ways to true happiness is to raise the daily affairs of life to the level of art.
Using and surrounding yourself with handmade quality objects can provide pockets of satisfaction and quiet pleasure to your day.
What things in your life give you inspiration?
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