Treasuring the Imperfect

A long time ago, when I was moving from North Carolina up to Jersey City, a friend came hustling over with a last-minute gift. It was a cute mug from Target. It was shiny and practical, and the saying on it was funny. So why don’t I know where that mug is now – while I regularly drink tea out of the mug my son painted for me at a local pottery shop, the one that’s covered with wild swipes of blue and yellow?

I live in a part of the United States where excellent bakeries are everywhere. So why am I making my homemade banana bread for a friend’s birthday? I know the cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery are far superior, and they ship. But I’m still stubbornly softening the butter in my kitchen while I work away upstairs.

The faded construction-paper ornament your kid made stays on the tree, or out on the table, while the expensive blown-glass ornament stays in the ornament box. “Oh, the cats will knock that right off the tree,” is the half-hearted explanation we give each other.

Items that have received a personal touch are often more appealing. That’s one of the reasons why people get so excited about a bunch of flowers. And why, when I’m waiting in a doctor’s office, I often see other waiting people go quietly over to touch the leaf of a plant. They want to know whether the plant is artificial or alive. Without fail in my experience, they show a flash of pleasure if they discover it’s a living plant. “That’s nice–” they’ll even say out loud sometimes. “It’s real.” If they’re feeling friendly, we might have a short talk about which plants can survive in tough indoor environments. (Short version: philodendrons are your friends.)

The hand is valued

“Why is homemade better?” I ask my artist friend Jill. “Why is rougher and imperfect better?”

After first explaining that this isn’t always the case (we cover Chinese textiles, European oil painting, and a few other areas – Jill is always thorough), she says, “The hand is valued.”

What a wonderful way to put it.

Of course, it used to be that everything was handmade, and therefore extremely expensive. There was a reason why people in the Middle Ages often had only one or two sets of clothes – buying a new suit was like buying a new car. But in the age of mass production, it became cheaper to make 100 of something than to make one. This had some very good knock-on effects for people’s general quality of life. At the same time, something was lost.

Simple ideas

Adding a personal touch can be as simple as making the homemade pizza. Or painting the Thanksgiving turkey platter in a pottery studio. You can draw a funny picture on your mass-produced greeting card: and make sure you sign it, because nothing is more personal and singular than handwriting. And homemade wrapping paper is the best thing ever. The less perfect the product is, the better it is, and the more people love it. So don’t hesitate to put your hand in it, get dirty, get rough, and make a homemade gift that is perfectly imperfect.