Interview with Crain's Chicago Business
“These artisans craft by hand what factories once churned out by the millions.”
(Published in Crain’s Chicago Business on June 19, 2023.)
Fountain pens made by Desiderata Pen's Pierre Miller.
June 19, 2023
As factories have closed around the U.S. and companies have relinquished much of mass manufacturing to Asia, a new artisan culture has arisen. Solitary makers of shoes, pens, smoking pipes and watches toil in basement workshops, creating products one by one, as was common before the Industrial Revolution commenced in the 18th century. Call it reverse industrialization.
When Parker Pen capped decades of offshoring by closing its massive plant in Janesville, Wisc., in 2010 and moving production to Mexico — after producing billions of pens over the previous century — it joined a queue of other major pen makers leaving the U.S. In their wake, artisans like Pierre Miller are flourishing in making pens by hand and selling them to a small audience of writers and collectors.
Miller, 39, is the proprietor of Desiderata Pen, based in the garage at his Portage Park home. Born in Maywood, he majored in chemistry and music at Kalamazoo College, where he'd been using word processors and typewriters, when a professor gifted him with an inexpensive fountain pen. A creator of poetry, short stories and personal journals in his spare time, Miller found his words flowed more smoothly via ink on paper.
Pierre Miller
He wanted a pen with a flexible nib (the pointed end of a pen), but Miller had trouble finding exactly what he sought. On a hunch a decade ago, he enlisted the help of a tool and die maker who showed him how to create shapes on a metal lathe. Miller then experimented with various plastics, wood and other materials, and even made his own ink reservoirs. The business took off in short order.
Desiderata fountain pens are treasured for the flexible property that allows ornamental writers, including calligraphers, to "shade" their letters to thicker and thinner lines, depending on how much pressure they apply. Connoisseurs love it. Gordon Lew, a resident of New York, owns 10 Desideratas. "His flexible nibs are some of the best available anywhere," Gordon says. "Also, he has a greater range in materials and designs than other pen makers."
Miller makes about 800 pens a year. Priced between $85 and $700 apiece, most are sold through his website and at a half-dozen pen shows he attends each year. He's a business of one, shipping orders individually, and that doesn't bother him, either. "I don't enjoy the solitary nature of my business, but I tolerate it," he says.
Nor is he fazed by the ubiquitous use of keyboards. "I am not afraid of the death of handwriting," says Miller. "The pens I make are particularly popular with people who like to draw, and that will never go away."