Back when I was taking pottery classes they were taught by an older woman named June. It’s been several years since I last took a class and I just looked her up and I’m glad to see she’s still rocking along. Anyway there was a guy in the class who was in his twenties, and one night, when June started talking about her husband the guy asked, “Is he a maker too?”
I could see she was slightly thrown by the question. When she works a local Renaissance fair she’s an artisan, or an artist, and she also makes and teaches ceramics, which I think could technically make her a sculptor, but mostly she referred to herself as pottery maker–never just a “maker”.
It’s not exactly a new term–the Oxford English Dictionary dates “maker” back to the 13th century–but I’ve always been used to referring to people who, well, make things by more specific terms: carpenter, painter, glass blower, or just artist. It seems like “maker” as a catchall term is newer and, according to the Urban Dictionary at least, describes hobbyists–not professionals. June is very much a professional: making and selling pottery and teaching others how to make pottery is the sole source of her income.
Anyway after a minute or two she chuckled and said, no, her husband was a math professor. He didn’t “make” things but lived in a more abstract world.
I think of June every time I see where someone has painted MAKE… on a building. It’s a really tough spot to get to, even tougher to photograph because really the only way to see it is from the interstate, but I like how someone has made something there and also, like a teacher, they’re instructing us to go out and make things.
Thanks for being such an amazing blog post maker, Chris.
ANN J KOPLOW recently posted…Day 3880: Super powers
We may be hobbyist blog makers, Ann, but the important thing is we keep making things.