Authenticity & Originality
Why Authenticity is Important
Back when me and my husband were historical re-enactors we had a focus on authenticity with what we wore and did. In those circles authenticity meant that something had provenance and you could prove its existence through either direct or circumstancial evidence. As much as possible what we wore was a reproduction of an authentic historical find. It was important because we were educators trying to give a reflection on what life in 10th century was like.
Now years later I am having to define authenticity again via my work. Every item we create is a reflection of our creativity and each one contributes directly to providing for our small family.
When someone uses my photography, videos or words to promote their income, they are in fact taking income away from us. With the ease at which this can be done has resulted in thousands of fraudulent websites, eroding trust in the genuine ones like this one.
This is why I have created this guide to help you better support genuine creators like us and not get scammed.
How to Identify Real Artisan Made Products
- Authorship: Artisans are proud of what they make. The indivdual maker or team (like me and my husband) are mentioned on the website.
- Price: Artisans cannot take advantage of ecomies of scale and the techniques used are usually pre-industrial. Though many artisans end up undercharging for their work in an effort to remain relevant in the market, genuine artisan made will always be a luxury or premium purchase. There is a simple formula I have created to give you an estimate of what is a fair price, based on my own trade: Take the minimum income of the country the artisan works in, divide it by 1000. That will give you the result on what something that takes on hour to make should sell at.
- Consistency: Artisans tend to be specialists. If a website contains a huge variety of different techniques and products, it is likely a reseller.
- Photography: Photos are often stolen from the original makers. So looking at an indivdual photo won't help much. Look at the website. Artisans tend to be the ones doing the photography themselves and aim for consistency. I don't watermark, because these are easily removed, but I do use the same background and many of you will recognise a very distinct stone in my photos.
- The story: Artisans tend to do what they do as a living because they are passionate about it. We often sacrifice income in order to do what we love. Read the descriptions and social media. There is so many more dimensions behind a genuine product.
- Quantity: There is only so much a single person, or a couple can make. If an artisan is popular, they are often sold out. They will never have an inventory of thousands of different items and you will often have to wait a bit longer. Virality is a double edged sword for us. We often cannot fulfill demand and it highlights our work to be copied or used as scam bait.
- Authenticity Pages: Look at the website for pages like this, or the "About Us" section. We also list all our official social media, retailers, domains and mentions in a specific page called "Where to find us".
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Contact us: Artisans are proud of what we do and we can talk endlessly about it. If you are unsure then you can always reach out and talk to us. There are a variety of ways we can prove we made something. I am happy to film a clip of me making something specifically for you. Ask us about the method how it is made. Just be patient, the more popular we are the less time we also have.
Beware of Counterfeit or Scam Websites
A lot of my photography is being used without permission online. I don't know what you would get, if anything if you where to try and purchase. Many of these sites are purely there to gather credit card information and other data. These website often use advertising on social media like Facebook to promote their websites. Because of the lax policies of many social media websites on verifying authenticity and taking down fraudulent ads, I have made the decision not to advertise on these platforms any more.
If you ever see something you like and you would like to buy it, then you will need to do some detective work. Do not click on the ad. Take a screenshot and run it through a reverse image search. I am hoping one day search engines will allow us to sort the results by publication date (or when they where crawled for the search engine), but until then try and see if you can find the original website, using the tips in the previous case.
Originality of our Design Work and Inspired Products
There are so few artisan blacksmiths left. This is a hard area to make a living, especially in the UK or USA, where the average productivity is much higher than what a single person can achieve. I feel that it is important for us to support each other, despite technically being in competition.
A lot of the work blacksmith jewellers sell tends to be simple, because complex items take time and would result in prices that would not be understood. These simple designs like spirals, roses, snakes, Mjolnirs are like simple words. Like with writing, we all have our own unique styles, the way we use the hammer, our finishes, little details, fluorishes etc.
I don't mind if someone creates their own version of a design I have made. Its like copying a simple word in your own hand writing. It becomes more of an issue if the design is more complex, like a poem or haiku made of multiple words. In these cases it is always good to reach out to the original author and ask permission or at the very least credit them for the design.
The same is in the case where the word is simple but the style and fluorishes all are copied. It is like forging a signature. This is the reason why I will never make and exact copy of someone elses work, unless it is in the historical record and well in the public domain.
Creativity is difficult. Coming up with a completely novel way of forging a new item is difficult. I've only managed it a handful of times in 20 years of smithing, with my Raven pendant being the most notable and to date my greatest achievement. Most of the time the novelty is in little elements, like the ridge on a Mjolnir, or the way the tang forms a bail.
Creativity and the wish to have a legacy in the craft are at the heart of what I do with Taitaya Forge.
I wish it were simpler. I know you care, because you read this far. That matters a lot. Stay safe out there, but don't let it deter you from supporting Artisans like us. Without your trust there is no future in this.