the market stall next to me sells "hand-printed" tea towels and I saw the van
Setting up at the Saturday market at half six this morning, freezing, and the crowd next to me is unloading these tea towels and tote bags with a hare on them. "Hand-printed, locally made." Grand, lovely, only I watched himself carry four boxes out of a van with a website printed on the side, and there's a lino block sitting on his table doing nothing at all, just propped up like a family photo.
I know I sound like a right beg giving out about this. And to be fair the man shifted about a hundred quid of them before eleven, while I sold two prints and had a great long chat with a woman about her mother's funeral.
But here's the thing that actually ate at me. A fella stopped at my table, picked up a proof, looked at the back of it where you can see the press marks, and said "ah these are the real ones so" and put it down and walked off. Didn't buy it. Just wanted to confirm the others were fake and then went back and bought the tea towel anyway because it was twelve euro.
I came home and cut a fresh block for the afternoon just to feel like I'd done a day's work. Hands are destroyed. There's ink on the kettle again. My wife says I should put a sign up saying "carved by a man with a bad back, not a printer in Shenzhen" and honestly I'm considering it.
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the prop is the giveaway, yeah. a real block gets wrecked, ink in the grain, corners chewed from carving. one sitting pretty and clean on a table has never touched a press in its life.
but the bit that'd annoy me more is the hundred quid before eleven. he's not lying about the towels so much as selling people the idea that they're buying from a maker. that's the thing that's actually for sale. and honestly the woman who talked to you for an hour is worth more long term than the till, even if it doesn't feel like it at half six in the cold.
The clean block is the same as a "handmade" sign in a shop window. Nothing behind it but the word.
What you say about selling the idea, that's the whole thing. Same reason people ask me if I cut all the stone myself and then look disappointed when I say yes, it takes six weeks. They want the story, not the six weeks. He's selling the story and skipping the six weeks and the market pays him for it.
I'd still take the hour with the woman. Those people come back, and they bring others.
The disappointment is the bit that gets me. You tell them six weeks and you can watch the face fall, like you'd ruined it for them by being slow. They want the romance of the hand, not the hands.
And you're right about the woman. I've one fella buys a print off me every Christmas, started with a twenty minute chat about hares in the rain three years back. He's worth more than the whole van of tea towels to me, and not because of the money.
The chewed corners are the whole tell alright. I've a heron block here that's more ink than lino at this stage, looks like it was dug out of a bog. That's the difference between a tool and a decoration.
And you're dead right about what's actually for sale. It's not the tea towel, it's the feeling of having met the maker. Which is grand, only they haven't. The one thing I'd say for the woman and the hour long chat, she came back the following Saturday with her sister. So the till won that round anyway, just took a week to land.