Why handmade matters now

Lately, I’ve been feeling the pace of change accelerate around me. Everything seems automated, optimized, streamlined. The news cycle never pauses. The information never stops.

When the world outside my studio feels chaotic, I find myself craving the opposite: the steady rhythm of working with clay. The quiet. The slowness. The way time stretches when my hands are busy.

It’s made me think about why handmade work feels so important right now, not just to me as a maker, but to the people who choose to live with it.

The Inefficiency Is the Point

My practice revolves around sgraffito, carving through layers of underglaze to reveal the clay beneath. It’s slow, exacting work. Every line commits you to the next. There’s no undo button. No easy correction. If I let my mind drift too far, the clay reminds me. The tool catches. The line wobbles. I have to return to the present moment.

Over the years, I’ve occasionally convinced myself I’ve found a faster way. A new tool. A shortcut. A slightly more efficient approach. And while I sometimes adopt small improvements, the truth is that my process never really speeds up. The details still take time.

And for me, they’re worth it.

Some things should be slow. Some things should carry evidence of the hands that made them. The tiny variations, subtle irregularities, fingerprints hidden in the surface.

That’s what I’m reaching for in the studio each day. Not efficiency. Not scale. But the quiet satisfaction of making something carefully, with my full attention.

Well, on most days.

If I’m honest, that kind of presence is often more aspiration than reality. There are distractions. There are deadlines. There are moments of frustration. But then I return to the clay, to the line, to the slow build of pattern. And it feels like a small act of resistance. A reminder that not everything needs to be optimized to be valuable.

Maybe that’s part of why handmade matters now.