there's a bag i bought in 2019 for a specific trip. the trip ended. the bag didn't.
it's been to four countries since then. it's been a gym bag, a camera bag, a bag for carrying things i didn't want to put in a bigger bag. it's been repaired once. it's been washed more times than i can count. it still works.
what happens after the reason
most objects have a reason. you buy them for something specific. the reason ends and the object either goes away or it doesn't. the ones that don't go away are the interesting ones.
they survive because they're good at being objects. not just good at being the specific thing you bought them for. good at being useful in general. that's a different quality and it's rarer than it sounds.
the things we make at what we make are made with this in mind. not "what is this for" but "what will this be for." those are different questions.
the object that becomes something else
the bag is not what i bought it to be. it's something else now. it has a history. it has repairs. it has a specific smell that i associate with being in transit. it's become a companion in a way that the original purchase didn't anticipate.
this is what good objects do. they become more than their function. they accumulate meaning through use.
the handcraft has been thinking about this — the relationship between craft and time, between what something is made to do and what it ends up doing. i think about it when i'm working on something new. what will this be in five years? what will it have become?
the the maker has some of this thinking too — the maker's relationship to the things they make, and what it means to make something that outlasts its original purpose.
the bag is still in use. i don't know what it'll be next. that's fine. it'll figure it out. good objects do.
you can find more of what we make at culture.