Over the span of decades and multiple careers, I often joked that I should’ve been a potter in Alaska. But I found myself building software tools to solve problems for businesses. While that can be a creative exercise, it felt distant and plastic and transactional. Solve somebody else’s business problems; get paid. Further, most people don’t really enjoy using software, particularly business software. It occurred to me that I was spending my life building products that, no matter how good, people simply dislike using. It emptied me.
I want to do work that reflects what I value. I want to produce products that people enjoy, that showcase creativity, individuality, utility (maybe? maybe not?) and craftsmanship. I want to create products that people enjoy as much as I enjoy creating them.
I will admit that I have struggled to concisely define what this business is all about. People have asked me if The Irony is a woodworking business, a fabrication shop, a gallery, a boutique, a gift shop. Well it’s more all of those things than it is any one of them. If I have to sum it up…I make things and (hopefully) sell them. I am striving to make a life as much as I am a living. Thanks for looking!
– Brunswick Lowe – The Irony Artisan Works
“No work of art is ever finished; it can only be abandoned in an interesting place.”
― Jeff Tweedy, How to Write One Song
