A hundred years ago we were at the beginning of the age of mass production. Henry Ford was in the process of perfecting the production of enormous numbers of Model T’s as long as they were black. Little did we know it, but this was the first line of a long drawn out and increasingly shameful suicide note, where a new dawn with the prospect of a better, safer, happier way of life has in the intervening century transformed into a rapacious grinder, demanding relentless increases in production to keep it alive. We can now produce so much, so fast, and distribute it with such speed that we are in truth unable to consume all that is produced. And we are well on the way to a wasteland.
There is another way and we at William Garvey Furniture Makers are a good example of it. We are diverse, complex, adaptable, quick on the uptake. We design pieces and make them perfectly at the first attempt. We invent a dozen things a week and our material of choice is timber, flexible, friendly and smelling good. Equally workable by hand or machine. Endlessly variable in appearance and capability. Perfectly suited to the individual production of complicated long-lived objects made precisely to the requirements of the user. Objects made for the sheer happiness and beauty of the result, or practical workaday objects to do a job with elegance and economy. Think of the Shakers.
They need us and we need them. I would not dare prescribe a cure for the terrible bind in which we find ourselves, but find myself wondering whether a combination of AI & carbon free energy might show us a way forward. Meantime we are here to design and make to your exact requirements.
Yes we can.