On to the reasons, which I've edited down a bit. I'm up to 12 now but I imagine this list may grow, if it does I'll just keep adding to this post.
This is the time of year where we all hear "Buy Local!" "Buy Local!" chirped about the market places. Here are some reasons to head on down to any markets or venues supporting local art and craft. Many of these points also apply to producers of local food & food products (yum).
1. - When you spend money on locally made art and craft, the money stays right in your local economy. In my case, any money I make is actually going straight to some local tradespeople. We need some major repairs done to our house! Of course money I earn through art will also go to small businesses that sell me supplies..
2. - Collectability and Value. I've been thinking about how to make my art the best possible investment for my customers. This year I've begun signing everything with my initials. Even my ornaments and figurines. So if you buy an ornament and see the "SP" I'm doing that so that years down the road they MIGHT actually be worth a few extra bucks. Or, they might not, but things do go up in value due to inflation of materials etc... I've also decided to resist the temptation to get into using molds. I don't like working with molds, sculpting is the fun part for me. So each ornament and figurine I make is a one-off hand-sculpted piece of art. Even if I ever do get into using molds I think I would do limited editions. My good friend and "Art-Ally" Evgenia Makogon has likewise begun working hard on series of collectible acrylic mini paintings which are absolutely scrumptious.
3. - Quality! Local art and craft is likely to be safer than questionable toxic products as what we hear about coming from China. All the potters I know, for instance, use food-safe lead-free glazes for functional ware. And when you buy local you can ask the artist or crafter what exactly is in the materials they are using.
4. - Don't forget about the venues and people who run them! In my case, my sales also go to support the shops where I have my stuff, as well as all the artists they represent. I'm huge fans of my current shops: Swoon, Jenny Jib, The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Gift Shop, and Nest (in Mabou). The folks running these venues are committed to local art and craft and work hard for their artists; maintaining a brick and mortar shop is expensive and unless we want cities and towns where big box stores are the only places to shop I think it's important to spend $$ in places like this. For crafters who sell at market, there are table fees that go back to the market organizers to keep the markets going. It's an entire industry, the more art and craft that sells the more $$ that goes into the pockets of people like this, and that means more $$ staying in the local economy rather than getting shipped off to China or other countries.
5. - Human Rights! Other posts have pics of my studio, would you rather have something for your tree that came from some place cozy, and happy like that, or from the sweatshops described in this Mother Jones Article about ornament factories in China? Seems weird to me to be buying items of "Christmas Cheer" made by exploited people overseas. Next time you get distracted by a shiny bauble in a big box store, think about where exactly that trinket came from! Although I'm guilty of bouts of workaholic -ism, I've been becoming more and more aware and conscious of the need for me to keep happy, balanced, meditative and focused when working on craft as I believe we need more objects around us that were made with positive intention. For the record, I'm currently paying myself less than minimum wage per hour but that's because I feel like I'm at war with China and I want to take back some of that market share for my homeland! Plus as I've mentioned earlier I'm terrified by the thought of ever having to get a job.
6. - Artists and Crafters are Nice People! This goes for everyone I've met in the industry. When you support artists and crafters by buying their stuff, it's likely that they have other artists and crafter friends they want to help out. It is likely they volunteer for events, on committees or in guilds, or teach art in their communities, fostering creativity in youngsters and adults. Some are even organized and profitable enough that they have created jobs for other people. Super great place to direct your money in my opinion.
Leads me to...
7. - Money is energy! I had this thought that money is power. Maybe that's why the word "Currency" is so similar to Electric Current or River Current... money moves people and things. Aha, thanks internet, I just looked it up in the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Turns out I was right on!
- Currency: 1650s, "condition of flowing," from Latin currens, present participle of currere "to run" (see current (adj.)); the sense of a flow or course extended 1699 (by John Locke) to "circulation of money."
8 - Child Care. Now I don't have kids, but one thing I've noticed is a lot of artists and crafters do, and by selling their work it allows them to work from home. This means their kids also stay home with them and aren't shuttled around to daycares. I don't know how the daycare system works but I imagine this also frees up space in daycares, while saving artist-parents money on child care costs. In some cases I suppose there are artists who can also care for elders while working at home. In the case of artists raising kids, the ones I've met get their kids right involved in their business. This means parent/child quality time, and the kids learn art and business skills, while having their own imaginations and creative spirits nurtured. I think that's nice!
9 - Environmental health. With the exception of the times I occasionally dump out small amounts of dirty glaze water on my lawn I would say my ornament factory is pretty environmentally friendly. Not sure if the same can be said about foreign factories. Unlike work from foreign factories, my work doesn't need to be shipped for thousands of kilometers on a giant tanker and packed up in various packing supplies. Rather, my work gets driven a relatively short distance, and I'm cheap so I do errands on the same trip. Instead of styrofoam my packing materials of choice is newspapers which I've read, or for larger objects I'll wrap them in towels and just lay them in the car. By staying home working all the time I'm also using my car less as now the only commuting I need to do is to drop off stock or pick up supplies. This means less time on the road, and I'm reducing my carbon footprint. It also leads me to:
10 - Savings in Health Care. By staying home more, and traveling less there's less chance of me ending up in a traffic accident. By spending my working life doing something that I love and is stress-relieving, I'm also hopefully preventing disease in my body which will save Canadian taxpayers oodles of money.
11 - Affordable Housing. Now this one might sound like a stretch but wait. The first pottery course I ever took was on Vancouver Island in 1996, and it actually turned me off of pottery for a few years. The teacher was the type to do everything for her student instead of actually teach. However, she did teach me one awesome thing, probably the most important lesson I ever learned. How to survive as an artist. She pointed out since a young age she always owned her home and lived someplace she could rent out a unit and/or rooms. This helped her pay her bills without having to lean entirely on her art. It made so much sense to me that now I currently have rentals, and I'm sure there are other artists/creatives out there who have figured out the whole passive rental income thing. However, going back to point #6 (artists and crafters are nice people) if I could make enough dough at my craft I would would definitely ratchet down those rents as much as I could, I'm sure there are others out there who would do the same.
12 - Saving the economy/Job Creation. It occurred to me that although I haven't needed or been able to create a job for an assistant, I have created a very good job passively. It is the job that I left when I realized I wasn't cut out to work a "real" job in my profession. My take on it is that there is only so much money to go around for Conservation Biology, and by me removing myself from the workforce it frees up work to do for someone else who might not rather be making art all day. That someone else is probably also a lot more focused on that type of work. I've also never managed to collect Employment Insurance even though there are times where really, I think I should have qualified. Now my financial future is all up to me and my income is directly related to my personal productivity. In time I might even get over my hang up about making and using molds and figure out how to grow my ornament business in a way that could create jobs for people.
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