ENTWINEMENTS

These questions started here. But this site, The Handmade Market, pushed the same buttons. I like their tag line,

"because Mall is a four letter word".

Are T-shirts handmade? Here is one from their vendors.

It appears to be an American Apparel T-shirt. And they are using the branding by Americain Apparel to sell their product.

Should one expect to get something handmade in the USA for $15-20?

From my experience , with overhead costs, selling costs, etc. this is about 10-15 min. of the makers time including design , manufacturing and packing. Is that what you expect when you buy something handmade?

Let just stay with the T-shirt issue for a moment. T-shirts are not permitted at the kind of Fine Craft Shows that I try to attend, and one would not expect to jury into the Smithsonian Craft Show with T-shirts. Here are some jury standards from the American Craft Council:

Paintings, prints, photographs, graphics (including etchings and web- or sheet-fed offset printed matter), works that incorporate materials acquired from the killing of endangered species, elephant ivory (fossilized ivory is the exception), dried or silk flower arrangements, bonsai, embellished commercially-made objects (e.g., tee shirts, note cards, etc.), and works assembled (wholly or in part) from commercially available kits are not permitted in American Craft Council shows.

This does not mean that there is not a market for this kind of T-shirts, T-shirts are a part of every one's wardrobe. In fact there are sooo many of these that we have abbreviations for them, WOATs (words on a tee) and GOATs (grahics on a tee). What are the consequences of using existing brands, such as American Apperal to sell "handmade"? T-shirts can be tie-dyed or silk-screen printed by hand. Can I tell the difference between industrially and hand screen tees? Or are we talking quanity here? Is this hand-decoration, hand-embellishment or customization? Is it the language, not the work, that needs to evolve to describe this part of our current lives?

And this is one of the questions which has already been considered, how about this piece? This is a sewn product, how is it better (that I should pay more) because it is hand-made?