"We Design!": The Ontologies of Small Scale Production

​          This is a long portal into a space of speculation on the uniqueness  and specialized "way of being" occupied by one making their life and living in this so called "maker's movement." Although my sample is limited, what I'm speculating on is the absolute qualitative difference of one's everyday life, affective position, and state of being in the world, city, neighborhood, and most importantly, one's own body.
​          I do not understand "the charge" one gives themselves or from where the motivation comes that leads them into this way of life, but at some level I can only say it lies in a heart of design - in an insistence that "this way must be;" in opposition, distinction, or resistance to an other: "that is not good enough."
​          And so this "heart of design" is what drives the labor.

​          And this distinction in a design is what can never be articulated and is always a gulf between the maker and the prospective client.

​          How the maker solves the problem of this gulf happens in one of two ways. One, the maker moves forward and creates the object to prove to the world that it does in fact exist. Or, alternately, one draws from a catalog of objects recognized by both maker and client and the maker agrees to create a reproduction - at which time the maker no longer exists and become a re-producer.

The "trouble" in the maker's way of being
​(their ontological position)
​Is that reproductions are a fraction of the production cost
​As there is only the cost and work of reproducing
​And not the cost of making the object itself 

And for a maker
​To compete with a reproducer
​-whether they call themselves a florist, a pastry chef, or a landscaper-
​Demands the sacrifice of one's entire life
           to fulfill the charge

And where the reproducer goes home at the end of the work day
The maker is always home
and yet, in the way of the reproducer
​does not have one.