The Matchmaker's Dirge

What is the creative impulse if not love? Love of the medium, the tools, the process, the result. Certainly there is alchemy in creating; all makers recognize this and revel in its dance. But when we create for others, there is another, secret magic, a tenderness that cannot be replicated elsewhere. In crafting a gift, the maker’s mind can’t help but be occupied with quiet, smiling thoughts of the intended recipient. Like a husband-to-be daydreaming of his betrothed, the maker is captivated by fond memories and anticipation. The challenge of matching a precious loved one to the perfect gift, the hope for delight on their face when the match is a good one, the gratification of a job well done – all these elements combine to transform the unsuspecting recipient into a sort of muse, and to amplify the creative process into something like an addiction. It becomes an urge, a compulsion, a need so undeniable that other obligations might fall by the wayside.

Maybe this time it’s a scarf, knit from the softest merino wool in a swirl of the jewel tones my grandmother loves so much. Or a bespoke pair of hand-stitched slippers for each of my in-laws, painstakingly pieced together from an embarrassingly large collection of felted upcycled sweaters to match their taste, their personality. An outlandish creature sculpted of neoprene sheeting perfect for a very special friend? It could be anything, really, in any medium or material, as long as it might make someone smile. Does this person’s birthday call for concrete molding? Time to learn to do that. If Christmas is the perfect occasion for intricately decorated gingerbread houses, well, there are online tutorials for that kind of thing.

For me, there was a period when it was tiny things, created to match my two best creations, my darlings, my babies. Impossible shoes, so small I struggled to maneuver them through my sewing machine. Charming overalls and sundresses inspired by another of my distressingly vast collections: vintage sewing patterns. Hats, hats, and more hats for teensy noggins (no spring-born baby has ever been better prepared for her first winter). An ill-considered mohair sweater set that somehow snuck into a hot wash after its first wearing and became the world’s poshest doll outfit.

Like so many of us (maybe all of us, if you dig deep enough?), I am a maker by nature. It is an impulse that showed up early and stuck around, affecting my decisions and shaping my life. Knowing this trait to be more than a hobby, I naturally gravitated towards a career that would let me make things for a living, insofar as was possible in my teenage view of the world. It turns out that designing products for factories to churn out is as far removed from craft as a tyrannosaur is from tap shoes. There are similarities, of course, but that tenderness at the thought of some theoretical end user just isn’t there like when the maker contemplates her muse.

Struggling with the burgeoning conflict between my job and my heart, there came a time when I endeavored to merge my two creative worlds. I decided to market a gift I’d made for my youngest: a weird, heavy, sad-eyed over-stuffed cat, and his friends, a bunny and a monkey. As gifts, they spoke for themselves. As products, they needed some work. Names, to start with, and a logo. Tags, eco-friendly materials, backstories. A website, a blog, Twitter accounts for each of them, of course. I did it all myself, ever the autodidact, and it was fine, for a newbie. We were ready to hit the market.

I took my creations to art sales, craft fairs, gift shows. These oddly formed characters grew their own personalities and became my constant companions. They sold out. I made more. They sold out again, any time I could talk directly to people on a quest for something special, when I could make eye contact and find the recipients who matched my gifts. Young kids, great-aunts, ironic mustachioed hipsters – a match can come in any form. But when the next step came--when I told myself I should find a distributor and get my toys into stores--the whole thing fell flat. Why?

First and foremost, because I’m not a salesman. I’m not going to bend over backwards to convince a stranger that they want what I’m offering: either you see it or you don’t. The mass market demands to be kowtowed to, insists we prove ourselves deserving of a sliver of their hallowed shelves. I know this from decades of industry experience, and I should have known that it would never be the place for my creatures. My professional work is optimized for that cutthroat world; my personal creations are not. My fledgling business slowly folded amidst a confusion of disappointment and relief. Those strangers who scooped up one of my toys during their brief existence in the world are now the holders of a collector’s item, never to be reissued. They live out there somewhere in the world, and I can only hope that someone still plays with them sometimes, or looks at them on a shelf with fondness. I wonder if those strangers know that, though I hadn't met them yet, I thought of them while I worked, and smiled.