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Avoiding ‘Sameness’
Two local artisans keep
their crafts alive
By Tiffany Eddy
Quantity is the word of my generation. Quality is the word of my grandparent’s generation because no one had a lot of anything back then. If something broke, you fixed it. Clothing passed from oldest sister to youngest, and then became dishrags and patches for other clothes.
Today, our shopping carts overflow with thin fabrics
and faulty stitches, plywood furniture, Twinkies and pulp fiction. Our
products, usually made in sweatshops outside of the country, are hauled
in for mass consumption, homogenous identity and inevitably thrown away.
What is worse, says metal artist Dan Romano, is that “eventually
no one [in America] will know how to do anything.” Romano’s
Colorado Springs business, Industrial Zen Design, is a manifestation of
his 37 years avoiding sameness by doing it himself. “I wanted to
produce things that…you couldn’t get.”
His small shop on North Nevada Avenue confirms this statement. In the corner of the dark room, a silver hand holds a flame. A metal “Zen table” (into which Romano plans to put sand and a rake much like a traditional Zen garden) stands solidly in the middle of the room. On the wall hangs a thick, metal fish, Romano’s first creation.
But transforming metal into art is not Romano’s only challenge. Our throw away society is one that can no longer afford quality, or the people who produce it. Those dedicated to the craft and meaning behind original, quality work are suffering, essentially, because they are too good.
Big businesses endanger the already shrinking population
of tradesmen because they offer cheap and immediate products. Artists
like Romano charge more for what they sell due to the high quality of
the raw material that goes into the work as well as the time it takes
to envision something new and original.
Charlie Perry, a Colorado Springs leather shoemaker agrees: “The biggest drawback to my business is that the shoes last so long…10, 15, 20 years,” he says. While the initial cost is greater (avg. $180 per pair), they last much longer than “your regular pair of shoes.”
“People are being very shortsighted about saving money,” he continues. “Mass production is only cheaper on the outlay.”
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| Charlie Perry |
Perry explains the quality of his work as he repeatedly stretches a piece of wet leather over the last (a model foot) and nails it into position. “Most people do this work dry and don’t get the stretch out, they also use hard leather for the whole shoe, I only use it for the sole.”
Mounds of scrap leather and bent nails litter the floor of Perry’s shop, The Moccasin Tipi, located behind his house. An ancient looking “metal stretcher” further back in the yard is barely visible through the dirty shop window.
Hundreds of magazine clippings of far-away places and exotic moths fight for space among the rows of leather, spools of thread and shelves of wooden feet. Johnny Cash hums lowly from somewhere in the back of the cluttered room as Perry ties his long grey curls away from his face and takes another swig of Mountain Dew.
He explains that while most people get bored with this repetitious work, he is the kind of guy that can “drive across the country without a radio, and that’s when the speed limit was 55.”
“I like to keep my mind working…enjoy the scenery…think.”
Perry does not have to compete with big businesses as his one-man operation is fully supported by trade shows that specialize in 18th and 19th-Century apparel. Because he has a set clientele, he can afford to be patient.
Romano, however, says that his biggest challenge is “being patient, not breaking down and making… trinkets that will end up in the dump.” He explains that it is difficult to sell to people without a catalogue, or pre-made products on display. “Most people just walk away when I tell them I can make them anything they want,” he says.
Romano’s Industrial Zen Design started out as
his dad’s T.V. repair place, first opened in 1953 when it was still
“a big deal to own a T.V.” His dad’s business experienced
its “heyday” in the 1970’s, when it was cheaper to fix
your television than to throw it away and buy a new one.
After working there for thirteen years, Romano realized “I should do something different.” He then went to school and got a degree in machining and electronics. The T.V. repair shop closed in 1996 and his mother used it as a sewing shop until Romano opened it up as I.Z.D. in 2002.
“I wanted to do stuff you don’t see all the time, stuff that is totally based on art,” Romano says, reflecting on the opening of his shop. “I didn’t want to do something just to make money.”
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