The Second Signature

Every table leaving Lena's workshop carried her signature beneath its polished surface. Customers liked the idea that a named person had shaped the wood. As orders increased, however, Lena spent more time meeting clients and less time at the workbench.

Her assistant, Yusuf, had designed the joint that made their latest table lighter and stronger. He had also solved the problem of a leg that twisted as it dried. At the exhibition, Lena described these improvements as the result of "our process", then watched a journalist write down her name alone.

On the drive home, Yusuf asked whether the next table could bear two signatures. He asked calmly, which somehow made Lena more defensive. She had founded the workshop, paid the rent and built the reputation that brought in the orders. Surely that counted for something.

"It does," he said. "I'm not asking you to take your name off."

For several days, Lena heard the request as a criticism of everything she had contributed. Only when she began preparing notes for another interview did she notice how often "we" became "I" in her own account.

The new label listed the workshop, the designer and the makers. It was less elegant than a single handwritten name, and one retailer complained that the extra detail weakened the brand.

Lena kept it. Signing her name had once meant taking responsibility for the work. She did not want it to become a convenient way of making another person's work disappear.