Hello I have been thinking about this issue of machine-made versus hand-made for a long time, and this seems like an appropriate time to address the issue.
I think that the essential difference between machine made lace and handmade lace is that there are two entirely different groups of people to admire. That is the essential difference to me. In machine made lace one admires the engineers who figured out how to design the machines, who tested their performance with threads available at the time, to see which ones had the strength to tolerate the machine's action. There are the lace designers to admire, who had to understand how the machine worked so they could invent designs that the machine could actually make. But they also had to understand what potential customers wanted, and create designs that would sell. In hand made lace the people to admire are entirely different. The lace makers themselves were often illiterate women living without any real security, just a few steps away from starvation. That was the condition of working people then -- a very hard life. But these women had understood how to make the lace and developed very great skill in their hands. And of course the lace designers are also to admire. They had to create designs that the local women would know how to execute, or that could be taught relatively quickly. And they had to understand the market and created designs that would sell. My focus has always been on the lace makers themselves. Engineers in general are admirable people. But the lace makers and the designers who invented the designs, keeping up with fashion, and figuring out new ways, new techniques: these latter ones are the ones that really amaze me. Machine made lace is a commercial product, like machine spun thread, like machine woven cloth. But hand made lace contains within it hundreds, thousands of individual decisions, individual choices. When I admire a piece of really old lace, I'm in contact with another human mind. Lorelei - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003/albums/most-recent
