The Rebirth of Craft

The Indus­trial Rev­o­lu­tion smoth­ered the trades. Qual­ity it seemed could never com­pete with the effi­ciency and rea­son­able prices of the assem­bly line. Bad news for artists, bad news for entre­pre­neurs and eventually/inevitably it would be bad news for con­sumers as well.

Sur­pris­ingly, even in the lows of this heavy reces­sion, sal­va­tion of these sim­ple ways has found an unlikely (if by now a pre­dictable) cham­pion: the internet.

The web has dra­mat­i­cally low­ered busi­ness entry-barriers, to the point that you can cre­ate a rea­son­able hobby busi­ness in 20 min­utes a week. Sites like Etsy and Dawanda (com­par­i­son info here) take care of the busi­ness side. You need only worry about the craft and then the mar­ket­ing. My friend Kathryn has set up a sweet lit­tle greet­ing cards busi­ness while she works full-time as a nurse and as she pre­pares for a new baby!

Qual­ity and artistry are fight­ing back.