A Stickley rocking chair made in 1898 was typical of the new firm's designs: it had an elaborate, machine-embossed crest rail, machine-turned acorn finials, and machine-turned stretchers. Its back and seat were upholstered with machine-woven "tapestry" purchased ready made from an outside supplier.This is in one of my books, Gustav Stickley by David Cathers.
Stickley was, indeed, conducting business as usual. If he was experimenting with new furniture designs in his Eastwood factory, he kept his innovative thinking to himself. Publicly, he was focused on building up his firm's sales volume by offering low-priced chairs: "The company has designed a line that will sell in quantities," reported Furniture World, "and it is now looking for carload business." In 1898 Gustav Stickley had an enterprise to run, a payroll to meet, a family to support. Such real imperatives--not his desire to produce Arts and Crafts furniture--determined his daily priorities.
What is spoken of here is something I hope to avoid due to the lack of "an enterprise to run, a payroll to meet, a family to support." While I do have monetary obligations limiting what I can achieve at this point in my life, they are nothing like a child or a mortgage or workers comp for employees.
At this point in my life, I can take things like extra income and convert them to purchasing wood or tools or books on the topics discussed here in this web log.
My concern is that I will eventually compromise my ideals and dreams for a bit of money; that I'll take a job somewhere building kitchen cabinets for tract houses because I have to. That's not to say that that particular job is bad or worthless; only to say that it's not what I want to do. (Some of you may scoff and say that building production "wood"work is not a way to get ahead money-wise, but with the advances that are being made in technology, a one man shop can do ten times the amount of work that it could 10-15 years ago.)
With that, I'm about to digress to another point I've argued before and probably will for a long time. It's a constant struggle for me to see people get paid so much for doing so little. Within my own sphere, I see the administration at my place of employment getting paid 2-3 times as much as me, maybe more. Some may see that as reasonable, but I don't. They provide a service by doing administrative things, things that I don't know how to do but with time, could learn how to do. I provide a service that they don't know how to do, but most of them with time, could not learn how to do. Why then, should they get a larger paycheck? Why shouldn't they be paid as much as I or I as much as them? They don't get paid 2-3 times more because they work 40-80 more hours per week than I do. They don't get paid 2-3 times more because their jobs are more hazardous than mine. The only thing I can think of is that they have more school under their belts than I do and I think that reason is bogus. Many arguments can be made to show that someone with more schooling is more skilled than someone with less schooling. Some of the most successful people in American history never finished high school. I don't know, someone help me out here. I'd like to understand why I view my paycheck as a form of under-appreciation and if any of this has anything to do with that.
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Unfortunately, I think all ideals will eventually give way to reality, even if just a little. But if somebody wants to hire you to do kitchen cabinets in tract housing, why not take that as your chance to establish a new paradigm? Do something like what Frank Lloyd Wright did with his Usonian houses. Figure out a way to make kitchen cabinets something better, but at a reasonable price, and then everybody will copy you and you'll be remembered as that guy who revolutionized kitchen cabinetry, and you'll get paid.
One of the problems with inequitable pay rates between workers and administrators has to do, I think, with people in administrative positions feeling that unless they get paid more, they don't have much authority to tell the workers what to do. Being in an administrative position comes with all kinds of psychological burdens, because they know as well as you do that you could do their job but they couldn't do yours. But still they have to tell you what to do. I think the extra money helps them forget that problem so they can do their job.
i think the pay structure has a lot to do with image. the business world is structure around prestige, image and other surface details. this is not to say that there aren't quality people there as well. but i've heard it several times from business types that you have to project the image of success. that means, wear a suit, act confident, make eye contact, be a polished speaker. these aren't bad things but they don't mean im' qualified to do anything or that i have character worth anything. what does that have to do with $? well, the university has to pay the top level people a lot to first attract workers, and then so the business community will respond with donations. it's stupid, but if the president took less money the business world would view that as lack of value and leadership.
what also stinks about this is that your boss, the facilities guy, would be fired if all the workers under him messed up. if you guys aren't putting out a good product you get cut, and maybe the boss too. but if you do good, he gets the bonus and the pats on the back. horsebleep.
this reminds me of a complaint i've heard on several occassions from mike. nobody wants to donate money for toilets, or for people to clean them. they'll donate for a building, a scholarship or a baseball diamond. you'll build an east hall but not increase you maintenance staff even one position to deal with a new five story headache.
i'll stop now.
Well, the disparity in what you advise, Peter, is one I've thought about quite a bit. As it is with tract housing, the lowball subcontractor gets the bid. That makes it very difficult to make innovative designs (and quality for that matter) simply because you've told your contractor that you can build a whole set of cabinets for a house using a $2 bill, a watermelon, and an ice pick. I mean, I'm sure something interesting would result, but can I put my Target dishes, pots, and pans in them? Will they hold up a bathroom sink? When I put my bowling ball on the top shelf of the closet is it going to plummet through all four shelves and down into the crawl space.
Way back when, cabinets used to be made out of wood and designed with joinery that wouldn't fail if the fasteners did. With the wonderful innovation of particle board, we've come to the point where we can make some semblance of a cabinet, but you better not spill water on it because it might disintigrate before your very eyes. I've seen shelves in brand new cabinets that were sagging before the owners of the house ever moved in.
The point, with tract houses specifically, is that no one could both outbid a competitor and do better work unless you intend to donate your own money to the project.
Here's my two cents on these topics.
First, we as a society have decided that we will pay higher for education and administration. Those who "administer" anything will make more than those they administer, no matter what the skills are of those being administered are. Take my "job" for example. I work with the worst of the worst kids, think of every problem student you ever saw during your public skool years, now expel them all and put them in my classroom. Difficult population as they say. Meanwhile down at the headquarters are people administering things, and they do not have to face thuggish teens who wear ankle monitors and have parole officers, instead they face spreadsheet charts and endless meetings. They make a lot more than me, and that is the way it is. No point in getting bitter about it, this is the world as it is today, and if I want to make a lot for doing a little I need to get into admin as well. Someplace along the way we felt that managers should be paid more than makers, and most of us can become a manager if we wish and make more.
We also pay more for education, those with more little title thingies make more. I have an MA (in a stupid field) so I make a lot more than the person next door without one, doing the same job. Fair? I dunno, but thats the way we have chosen to pay, and once again anyone can play this game and go back to skool, get more titles and make more money.
Which brings me to a rabbit trail of sorts, climbing the economic ladder of America. There appear to be two ways to get ahead here, either education or entrepreneurial skills. If you choose the education route then you have to accept that those who climb to levels of higher "responsibility" will make more, and those who get more titles will make more. If you are very entrepreneurial then you can drop out of skool altogether and get rich by marketing or making something. If you can make something cool, but lack marketing skills, you will not get far up the economic food chain, in fact it seems that one does better with marketing skills than making skills. (witness things like Microsoft)
Secondly, I think you ought to look at your craft in another way. You see selling cheaper mass marketed goods as selling out, when I don't think it has to mean that. Did you know that Picasso himself had factories churning out mass market versions of his art as low priced consumer goods? One can choose to say that "I will only make top end stuff, I shun the mass", which is what Pablo could have done. But, as most people cannot afford thousands of dollars for a vase, or a chair, or a table you will not sell a lot. Or you can see it as "I need money to make my high end stuff, and I can also help bring art to more people who wish it but do not have the economic means to buy top of the line goods". Many people wish to have more attractive and well made goods in their homes, and those artists and makers who see this can meet both their financial needs and this desire at the same time.
For example, you could go to IKEA and pitch the idea of a mass market version of the table that is in our house you made. Suggest a selling price of $199.95, and a purchase from you price of $95, and that it will still be all solid woods and look nearly identical. This will fit nicely with their target market, and so they give you a contract for 3000 tables. You then go to a furniture factory in China and contract the bid to them, of course being in on the redesign of the table so it can be mass produced. Eliminate the lack of metal screws, the exotic fits, and some other factors as most people simply
don't care about those things, and shazam, you can get the table made in solid woods of acceptable quality for a per unit cost of $35 bucks or so, shipped. On the bottom you have a wood burned brand logo placed with your company name, to build reputation. Ship them to IKEA's distribution points, and see how it sells. You just made $180,000. Could you use 180k? Sure, you use that to build up a center where you can make high end goods for individuals using the same logo. IKEA loved the table and it sold out, they want another piece from you, maybe this time you clear 200k profit which you churn back into the high end work. (along with a nice home and lifestyle)
You are now fulfilling both your dream of making top end goods and you are helping normal people have nice art/furniture in their homes for a reasonable price.
Then I give you 10% right, for adminstrating?
i agree with a lot of what heath said about titles etc.
as for the mass production, that can be a good way to go. unfortunately, who starts there? picasso didn't, warhol didn't but they both had "factories" that mass produced their stuff. look @ target, who currently employ such names as mossimo and isaac mizrahi. those guys both started out as small designers, and built their name and empire. then they ended up in a target. so how does adam get there? he's got to start small and build.
i would challenge one aspect of that: methodology. maybe that's not the right word, but it's the best i can think of to sum it. the soul of adam's pieces are as much the method that goes into making the piece as the design, wood, etc. losing the exotic fits, hidden screws and the like would change the end result. this doesn't mean that one can't put out a large production run of one of adam's pieces it just means that the cost is higher or the profit margin is smaller. i think he might also object to farming it out to china for mass production. nothing against the chinese, but i don't see adam's ideals being lived out by the labor factories/sweat shops that are in china, vietnam, indonesia, new jersey and beyond.
Ed has a point with where I would prefer to go with what I'm doing. I, unfortunately for my pocket book, would rather be known as an artist who makes quality pieces than a designer who oversees the construction of cheaper facsimiles of my work.
I understand Heath's point in saying that I can use the money from the mass produced stuff to subsidize my high end stuff as well.
I have to think about all these options and then decide how much, if at all, of a compromise I want to make.
Or you can use the method that goes against the normal society rules. Just be a professional sports player. You will always make many times the money that your manager makes.
Jim
When Henry Ford started making cars, they were playthings of the rich. But then he rationalized the production process, paid his workers more, and turned out cheaper cars in less time. That only took a few years. Before long, Americans were the most mobile society in the world.
I think it was Andrew Carnegie who did something similar with steel, to where his foundries put out more steel in an hour or a day than prior ones had put out in a year, and it was because it was cheaper for him to make more. Economy of scale. I bet the steel was every bit as good, too, if not better, or at least of a more consistent quality.
One more example from industrial history. When George Eastman (you know, the Eastman Kodak Company) started making cameras, there was no demand. He had to create the idea of the amateur photographer and instill in the population this idea that they should want to take their own pictures of whatever they wanted. Then he sold loads of cameras to them. The slogan was, "You press the button, we do the rest."
So what's the lesson? You learn from Ford that rationalized production methods means you can make more cheaper, you learn from Carnegie that economies of scale mean you get richer by making more stuff, and you learn from Eastman that if people don't want your stuff, you make them want it.
Of course, if you're a responsible human being, you also want to consider whether the desires you're inducing in the market are healthy ones. What Eastman did for cameras was also done with TV dinners. One better than the other? Probably. When it comes to culture, especially our own, I don't see why it should be "selling out" to induce the market to a subtler aesthetic palate. If you can figure out a way to, say, make a really spectacular line of modular kitchen cabinets that can be mass produced, mixed and matched, and installed in a whole bunch of different configurations, and be better than the usual crap and aesthetically pleasing, I don't think that would be "selling out." I think it would be taking better ideas into a stagnant marketplace and moving the product forward.
The nice thing about the furniture market is that companies like Ikea and Target have already moved in and begun to awaken in people the idea that their homes can and should be pleasant, aesthetically pleasing places. As well, there is the feng shui craze. So you develop those philosophies further and make something better. Don't just make isolated pieces. Make corresponding stuff. Make modular stuff. Mix-and-match-able stuff. You set up a website with a customer discussion area where people can share tips about how to use your pieces in their homes. Develop a culture and brand loyalty. (That's the lesson you learn from Apple, by the way--another company where people got rich making very good stuff without "selling out.")
I'm not looking to become the person that streamlines the process. There are enough people out there who have $100,000 machines which can cut out a piece exactly as you've drawn it on a CAD program or cut parts for five of something in a matter of minutes.
I'm not looking to be the guy who walks into the shop and says, "You know, if that part was made out of aluminum, we'd save $3000 a year." That's not me.
I'm not the guy who wants to build cheap furniture out of cheap materials that may look cool or be superbly functional, yet might fall apart in a matter of monthes or years. I think that's wasteful and in some ways ruthless.
I want to build pieces that are stylish, functional, and long lasting. We have furniture from hundreds of years ago in excellent shape. Do you think my IKEA entertainment center is going to last five centuries? Granted, they manufacture so many that 500 years from now, scientists may be able to piece one together with the fossilized remains of several hundred of them.
Call me a romantic or an idiot or whatever, but there is something valuable and intrigueing about a piece that was made by one man, all by himself, who made mistakes and had to disguise them. Who sharpened his own saw and cut all the joints with that saw. Who custom mixed the stain or shellac to a very specific standard for each individual piece.
Well, yeah, that's certainly an attractive romantic view, but it's not likely to be profitable, unfortunately.
My two cents on the administrator versus worker discussion; I think it depends on the industry. In my industry, healthcare administration, the people who do the work are highly educated professionals (physicians) and make a LOT more money than I do as a lowly administrator. Even with initials behind my name, I still would not make more money than a physician as an administrator. However, physicians need administrators because they did not go to school to manage a business. It’s not to say that physicians, if they stopped practicing medicine, couldn’t administer, but then, they would no longer be physicians but administrators.
Do we need administrators? I think it depends on the industry and the business, but I think they are pretty much everywhere. Writers have agents, actors have agents, artists have agents, doctors have office managers, lawyers have office managers, teachers have administrators, and professional athletes have agents, see a pattern here? In Adam’s case, it also depends on what he wants. Administrating takes a lot of time and, to be financially successful, some business savvy. If the artist is splitting time between creating art and administrating, what suffers? The art or the business or both? One can have only art but then one does not have a business. It’s a chicken and egg question because if an artist wishes to sell his art, he needs to have a business. If an artist doesn’t want to sell his art, then he creates lovely pieces and when he dies, someone else with business savvy will come along and make butt-loads of money off all his work.
In my business experience, administrators can be handy things to have around not only for the business acumen they offer but because there is also a psychological disconnect between the art piece and the administrator. It’s not to say that the administrator doesn’t appreciate artistic work when she sees it, but an honest administrator is less likely to be swayed into giving away or selling on the cheap artwork that is obviously high quality. Whereas sometimes the artist, having the physical and psychological investment into a piece of art, can sometimes be swayed into selling something for less than it’s really worth. A good administrator will look out for the artist’s benefit.
Since Adam has stated his business ideal for his work, a possible alternative would be to create a gallery for showing your work, the same as is done for paintings and sculptures. If you think of your work as a piece of art, then you have to sell it as such. That way, you can satisfy your need to make sure the work you do is appreciated but at the same time, it’s available to the population segment that has the funds to pay for high quality. Sometimes, all it takes are selling a couple of high end pieces and you’ve made a good amount of money. Check into small, local galleries and see if they are interested in showing functional art. Good galleries will appreciate craftsmanship when they see it. However, one still must be cautious of getting ripped off – don’t want to sell it for too cheap. Since the gallery will see itself as the administrator they will expect a percentage of the pie.
No one ever said life is free. ;)
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