Idea 41 of 500. Cluster 2: Sell the making, not the object
Brass and bronze casting in the Kandyan tradition, watched from pour to polish
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
Every idea in cluster 2 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Contact a brass workshop working in the Kandyan tradition and ask whether visitors may watch a pour from a safe distance, then the finishing. Agree a fee per visitor and a table to sell pieces. Bring one small group on a casting day. Paid entry, and pieces bought after the pour, are the proof that the watching sells the object.
- Who pays first
- Visitors around Kandy who want to see how temple brass is made and buy a piece they watched being finished.
- What leaves today
- Brassware sells as a finished object on a shop shelf; watching the pour sells the tradition and lifts the price of the piece.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
Courses instead of meals, the one the book would build first
More from cluster 2
Idea 41 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.