OurGoods

BARTER REPORT from Caroline Woolard: material (leather) for skills (leather bag making)

I met Will Lisak at Trade School in February. He said he found Trade School online and was excited to connect to people who respect craft in NYC. The summer passed before I ran into him (this time at Brooklyn Kitchen). I remembered the leather bags, and that I had a stack of leather from Build it Green that hadn’t been used for a year, so I proposed a barter: teach me how to make bags in exchange for all my leather.

Last week, he showed me the tools and techniques and we both worked on bags. He made a book bag that fits on his belt and I made a jewelery-selling bag that fits on my belt. I watched how he worked and asked for help when I got stuck. We worked all day, from 11-7, and shifted from focused silence to lively discussion about communal lifestyles/business models and the dignity of work.

Later that night, still satisfied and energized with my new skill and product to prove it, I read this moving writing from his website:

“Our attention has not gone into ornament or surface appeal. Our concern is with the spirit and constitution of the thing. Our devotion is in consideration of how our products live with the movements of a life, and how our industry allows our lives to move.”

I hope anyone who wants a bag gets Will to make one! I also think he should host a day-long workshop.

More from his site:

“ETWAS the company, like a bicycle, requires nothing but the human hand to function.

We apply modern reductionist functionality to a craft system. Our bags are made using a portable workbox that contains all the supplies and tools needed for the bag. This system is halfway between bespoke and mass production, and has many of the benefits of each.

We have no buildings and no offices. We use neither electricity nor water nor plastic. We are light. We are mobile. All of our materials are durable, natural and low impact. From our wooden benches, to our steel tools, to our copper rivets- the patina of age and the scars of use will only add richness, texture, and the comfort of familiarity and use. We design everything to be repairable- because things that get ruined are no good. That said, we also believe objects should fade gracefully. The truly well designed thing will last forever if cared for, but if left in the field will rot away quietly and respectfully. That mix of robustness and sensitivity is pleasing. There is poetry in the act of caring for or fixing a thing that you know will be with you forever, if only you love it enough.”

Will’s bag project heads towards a larger business plan for communal living, the draft of which he shared with me:

thoughts on living with others
or, the constitution of the collective house.

This is particularly applicable to youth, transient people. 

It is difficult to live together without fellowship. Who is responsible for the maintenance of a place? We all keep our private things in our rooms and are always wanting for larger infrastructure, but will not invest in it as individuals because we would not find sufficient use, I would like to can some beets, but I will not buy a canner because I am only need it for a day and it is too big to justify storing and carrying on my moves. many people in the house may feel this way. 

I will not buy a projector, because I do not have a wall, and I am not going to spend a thousand dollars on  a place where I will only live for a few months.

Collective houses run in this atomized way will always waste resources and fail to be as strong of a resource in themselves as they could be. 

A house must see itself as an independent thing,  and that consciousness must arise from fellowship of the inhabitants, talking and thinking together. They must speak, they must have meetings and delegate tasks that benefit the house. The house that provides more must also demand more. 

Who should pay for these resources? Certainly not the transient, there for a year or under who just happens to arrive at the time of an expensive purchase. I have seen so many times a house filled with the unemployed, each seeking separate, private low paying jobs. A good house must have a kind of cottage industry, it should be able to pay for it’s own materials an be able to provide for it’s inhabitants to an extent as well. 
Houses have space, kitchens, they can store, ship, and produce simple products of all kinds, from soap to hand-woven textiles, to paper. They can serve as the base for a moving, repair or landscaping company, an underground bakery or a bulk food buying co-op. 

The income from these can buy projectors, good cookware, sewing machines, canning jars, linens, all the sundries a house needs to properly function, and in return for these added benefits the house must demand discipline and maintaining labor from it’s inhabitants. There must be cleaning and cooking schedules, time to oil wooden counters, to sharpen kitchen knives, to put food by, to wash communal linens, to paint and repair and carry out larger maintenance tasks. 

A house run in this way is more comfortable, more efficient, cleaner, costs the inhabitants less, and takes care of it’s own concerns. It can be a powerful resource rather than a tedious and useless expense.

On the few occasions I have seen houses run in this way, they have been truely remarkable and beautiful places, some of the most graceful and thoughtful things I have seen man create. 

the house must also interface with the public, it must host. It should be equipped to host travelers, meals, and events. It should run relevant programing, and it should be able to meet the needs of musicians and diners.  “

After reading Will’s statements of conviction, I decided to draft a mission statement for OurGoods. Here it goes:

OurGoods runs on mutual respect.
 
OurGoods.org exists so that creative people can help each other produce independent projects. More work gets done in networks of shared respect and shared resources than in competitive isolation. By honoring agreements and working hard, members of OurGoods.org will build lasting ties in a community of enormous potential.