You are standing at a table. The piece is good, the price is fair, and you are about to say the sentence every maker hears a hundred times: “I’ll think about it.”
Sometimes that is the right answer. Often it is not — you walk away, you keep thinking about it, and by the time you come back the table is packed up.
Here is how to buy handmade without regretting it.
Ask how it was made
Not to test the seller — to learn. “Is this thrown or hand-built?” “What clay is it?” “How long does one take?” A maker who answers in three sentences is telling you the truth: this is their work. A maker who recites a brochure is telling you something else.
Ask what happens if it breaks
Good work does not come with a warranty, but it comes with an answer. “Can this go in the dishwasher?” “Will the colour fade in a window?” “Can it be repaired?” If the answer is “I don’t know”, that is useful too.
Look at the price of the gift, not the object
Twenty-two dollars wrapped, with a tag and a bit of twine, is not the same purchase as twenty-two dollars loose in a bag. If you are buying for someone else, ask for it wrapped. It costs the maker cents and saves you a stop on the way home.
Take the maker’s page, not the business card
A card goes in a pocket and dies in the laundry. A page stays findable. Ask: “Where can I find your work after today?” If the answer is a web address, write it down or photograph it.
If you are still thinking about it on the way home, order it
That is the whole reason small makers have pages now. The piece you liked at four in the afternoon is still available at nine in the evening — if the seller has somewhere to sell from.
And one last thing, which costs nothing: tell them what you liked. Not “beautiful work” — the actual piece. “That bowl with the green inside.” Makers remember the pieces people remember.
A fair is not a shop. You are buying from the person who made the thing, in a hall, on a Saturday. That is the point — and it is also why the good pieces go home with someone else.
If you are the one behind the table, the same questions look different from the other side. That is what I write about at Ring & Ship.