“You know I was just scrolling through google searches seeing all the usual names - amazon, target - whatever - I was so happy to come across your store.”
The man on the phone was calling to make a correction on the order he had just placed with us - a mix up with the address. Why he chose to shop on Handwork’s online store for his Mother’s Day gift was framed by who he wasn’t choosing to shop with - an onslaught of multimillion dollar corporations.
On the surface we all instinctively understand what he is getting at. There’s something heartbreakingly generic about a faceless corporation. Sanitized of any distinct personality. Highly palatable - like ultra processed food. Stripped of its inherent nutrition and injected with engineered flavors designed to hit our brain just right. You can find something perfectly nice at any one of these places. But there is one truth that a big box store or website cannot escape. They have no story.
At least, not a story you really want to engage with.
The man on the phone bought his mother one of Carol Howell’s dried flower wreaths. Carol’s wreaths are created with plant materials that she harvests and dries herself. Much of what she uses can be found in gardens that she has tended for decades. This wreath is not only a decorative piece - it also has history. She grew the materials, designed the arrangement and put it together drawing upon years of experience and skill.
Compare that to a wreath from say, Homegoods. It’s probably plastic or some other manufactured material that has never seen the light of day. If it’s not, who knows when or where it was harvested from or by who and under what conditions.
The design - whoever decided that those colors or plants should go together was a nameless worker whose choices had to go through a litany of pre-approved sanctions based on market trends.
The production - on a factory line. Likely made by hand, but by who and under what conditions is all a big question mark. Did they care about the wreath they were making? Probably not. It was one of hundreds produced daily.
And then the distribution - as many of those wreaths that get purchased, hundreds won’t. They will eventually get downgraded to old stock and put on sale. If it doesn’t sell over the course of the season, it will likely be dumped in a landfill.
It’s not a very romantic story - it's the story of mass production.
Now I understand why the industrial revolution was generally a positive thing. It made goods that were previously only reserved for the very wealthy cheaper and more widely available. But today the unstoppable engine of perpetual growth that now defines our economic landscape has flooded our lives with stuff. More stuff than we know what to do with. The endless churning of novelty goods that pour into big box stores every year is becoming less of a net good and more like an environmental hazard.
But that's not to say the desire for things that make us happy is a bad thing.
I like to think of our ancient ancestors decorating a clay pot or adorning themselves with jewelry. The oldest known pieces of painted pottery dates back to 9,000 years and jewelry dates back as far as 150,000 years. In a time when survival was much harder than it was today, our ancestors still chose to spend time creating and enjoying objects that brought beauty into their lives.
And we’re no different.
The biggest difference for us moderns is that we are absolutely flooded with choice. Choice is an overwhelming thing. In studies it has been shown that we are actually much more content with our choices when we have fewer options. The looming specter of buyer's remorse when we are torn between options makes even the final decision less satisfying - did we really choose right? Really the difference between whether we are satisfied with our choice depends on whether we have emotionally connected to it.
This brings us back to our customer buying a gift for Mother’s Day - what brought that sense of satisfaction from choosing one of Carol's wreaths and not one from Amazon?
The answer is human to human connection.
Story. History. A sense of place. These are the anchors that make an object more than just an object. It’s a living thing with a conception, birth, and finally a new life when a woman opens her gift on Mother’s Day, sees the handwritten note we transcribed from her son and weaves it into the fabric of her life with all the joy that beauty and meaning have to hold.
