the wrong use
i have a knife that i use as a letter opener. it's not a letter opener. it's a paring knife. it's better at opening letters than any letter opener i've ever owned.
i don't know what that means exactly. but i think about it.
objects that improve through misuse
there's a category of object that gets better when you use it for something it wasn't designed for. not because the design was wrong — the design was right for the original purpose — but because the qualities that make it good for one thing turn out to be exactly what you need for something else.
the handcraft and texture writing at Brushed Past gets into this sometimes — the way a tool's material properties determine what it can do beyond its intended function. a palette knife that becomes a bread knife. a brush that becomes a calligraphy tool.
what the wrong use reveals
using something wrong tells you what it actually is. not what it was designed to be — what it is. the qualities that survive the wrong use are the real qualities. everything else is context.
i've been thinking about this in terms of the objects we make and sell. the ones that last aren't the ones that do exactly what they're supposed to do. they're the ones that do something else too. that find a second life in someone's hands.
the brand and culture writing has a version of this — the product that becomes something different in the market than it was in the design brief. same principle.
the object that earns its place
an object earns its place on a shelf by being used. not by being displayed. the ones that get used wrong are often the ones that get used most.
more from Calitoy Wares when there's more to say about objects. and from the maker essays when there's more to say about why any of this matters.