Why DIY? Five Reasons I Make Things by Hand

 
This is my business card. I've been prepping my exhibit for the Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show this weekend, and found myself silently cursing the demon that possessed me to design these four-layer cards that, at my fastest, take me 40 minutes to turn out just 15.  Below are the paper layers I have to glue together in perfect registration and trim down to 3.5" x 2" before adhering the final printed card. 

As I made a batch, I thought about my failed attempts to learn computer design and my passion for the tactile beauty of the handmade.  I can't be the only nutcase around, given the DIY, handmade, and crafting renaissance and the popularity of Pinterest, Etsy, and Martha Stewart Crafts, to name just a few sites.  I can't speak for everyone, but here are 5 reasons I work with my hands.

1. IT JUST FEELS GOOD.
There's a reason kids go crazy when told "Don't touch!" We are covered in skin with thousands (millions?) of nerve endings -- we're meant to interact with our environment in a tactile way.  I love the feel of paper under my fingertips, the knife blade cutting through the card stock, the bottle as I squeeze glue onto the paper.  I feel connected to my materials, as though there's a direct channel between my body and my design.

2. IT KEEPS ME HONEST.
Working by hand slows me down, making my creative decisions better.  Because I spend a lot of time manually measuring, aligning, erasing, and cleaning my work space, I buy myself time to make considered decisions about color, composition, and proportion.  In the time it takes me to cut out a shape, for example, I'm forced to reckon with whether it's genuinely beautiful, or whether it belongs in the recycle bin.

3. THERE'S NO COMMITTEE.
When you craft by hand, what you see is what you get -- there's no "middle guy" between Art Director and Designer.  It's just me.  There's also no sitting around waiting for the printer to output or to see how the design looks on someone else's screen.  Above, for example, as I cut some place cards I can test what rounded corners do to the design and make adjustments.


4. IT HUMANIZES ME.
You can see nicks, pencil marks, and uneven spacing in my hand-cut pattern art above, but I like being in tune with the process of creating something, even the ugly stages.  It's kind of like live music or theater: there's always the chance of the flubbed line or note.  But those moments humanize us all.

5.  IT'S WHO I AM.
This is harder to explain briefly, but I'll let Frank R. Wilson tell it his way:  "The hand is not merely a metaphor or an icon for humanness, but often the real-life focal point...of a successful and genuinely fulfilling life." From The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture