Tempus Fugit

Nine years ago, almost to the day, I spent my evening as I watched television holding a bar of Cuda, rolling it over and over again in my hands.  A few weeks earlier I had been to a rare wood dealer in Cleveland called Berea Hardwoods to buy some Bocote so that I could make some pistol grips for a buddy of mine.  He saw the pipes that I was making and asked me if I could make him some pistol grips.  My cabinet maker (who had also seen my pipes) had told me about Berea Hardwoods so I suggested to my friend that we pay them a visit.  We shut our law offices down early (we shared the same building) and took the 25 mile ride to Berea Hardwoods.

Berea Hardwoods is an incredible place with woods that you can’t even begin to imagine.  They’ve since moved to a more lavish warehouse, but the old one, a place that I would come to spend many hours, was a treasure trove.  That September afternoon I picked up that Bocote for the grips, and even some to make a few tampers.  Since March I had been making tampers from leftover briar from my pipe making, and the Bocote offered a great diversion to make tamps with brass taken from spent shell casings.  While at Berea Hardwoods that day I spied shelves of colorful acrylic material but didn’t inquire any further.  Over the next handful of days I couldn’t get those colorful bars out of my mind.

A week or so later,  early in October 1998,  on my own I went back to Berea Hardwoods and bought a few bars of two acrylic materials, one a mix of emerald green, purple and black, and, the other a coral random pin stripe set in a black matrix.  While these materials would go on to be known as Cuda and Reef, at that point they were just a handful of acrylic bars for some purpose that I had yet to fathom.  For some odd reason the thought of using them to make tampers, despite that fact that I was already making some tampers, didn’t spring immediately to mind.  So, I sat there in the evening, probably watching the MLB playoffs, holding a bar of Cuda, wondering what the heck I could do with it because it sure was pretty.  Then, one evening it hit me.  Okay, I was a little slow on the uptake, but when the concept hit me it was crystal clear, and like a thunderbolt.  But, the question then came to the forefront as to whether it could be done. Could I bring my vision to fruition?  Fortunately I had the early very limited tools from my efforts at amateur pipe making (up to that point kits only) so at least I had a start.  For the next few days I considered what I was about to undertake.

Then, on October 18^th of 1998 I sat down at my pipe making card table late one afternoon after work and set about to make the first Ming from a bar of Cuda.  After I set the brass and carved at the piece of acrylic with my Dremel (back then I didn’t even have a FlexShaft) the shape for the first piece sprang to mind.  As any tamper making venture would slip into a business plan that I had created as a lunch hour doodle for pipe making, the name was already established as “Ming-Kahuna”.  Ming brought to mind a vase, so the vase shape was used and a “figure eight” aspect was added to the shape as I felt that a pinch-point to hold the tamp was important.  The first tamp took hours and hours to carve, but as I sat there, my hands moving as if possessed, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was doing something that I had been born to do.  It was if my consciousness was on autopilot.  That was my first visit to what I lovingly refer to as “the zone.”

So, that’s where I was on October 18, 1998, sitting in my basement two houses ago in a different part of the country creating a craft that would change my life.  In the coming months my tampers would begin to sell, something I wasn’t sure was possible as there was precious little precedent for what I was attempting. And by the first part of 1999, based on the advice of a Net savvy buddy and web builder, I decided to sell my work myself via a web page.  That may not sound so revolutionary, but back then in late 1998, very, very few artisans were selling their own work, and the Internet as such a venue for an artisan to sell directly was new territory upon which few had tread.  Tinsky had created the model.  Trever Talbert adopted it early on (and has created an especially effective model of his own) and Lee Erck was right there early on as well, probably right around Tinsky.  Believe me, what we take for granted today, a model that so many new artisans slip into as easily as a pair of moccasins, was certainly no certain thing back in 98.  To be candid, I was far from convinced that it was viable for an artisan to sell his own work over the Net.  Fortunately my doubts were unfounded, and, as they say, the rest is history.  So much has happened in the last nine years that I am absolutely dumbfounded by what has transpired.

So, this week in the evenings you’ll find me watching the MLB playoffs while holding a bar of Cuda.  I’ll be rolling it over and over and over again in my hands reflecting upon where I’ve been while dreaming about where I will be going.    

…begin again.

Meet Iggy.

In my October 3^rd entry “All good things…” I said that we planned to bring another cat into our lives creating a new place while Dewy’s place, one that spanned twenty years, was still fresh in our hearts.  We would never try and replace Dewy but only find room for another.  Well, yesterday we did just that.

While Dewy came from a rather odd mall store that only sold cats,  this time around my goal was to find our kitten at a shelter.  Back in Cleveland we had always supported the animal protective services, and, I wanted that to continue here in Atlanta.  We hadn’t done that with Max (he’s papered, the offspring of Pretty Boy Floyd) but this seemed a fine time to renew our support of animal shelters.  Towards that end I filed a number of online applications with local shelters but settled upon a local shelter nearby called SouthernHope.  Amazingly the initial screening with many shelters here in the area can be done online with the photos and history of numerous potential pets.  Another example of it being great to be living in the future.

So, after a few false starts, we found SouthernHope and a photograph of a cat they had named “Karma”.  She was exactly what we wanted, a baby female gray short haired tabby.  Dewy had been a stunning tortoise shell,  but we wanted something very different.  And with a name like “Karma”, how couldn’t I take notice.  With a quick phone call I determined that Karma was available.  As my wife was jammed in meetings she suggested that my daughter and I run over after school and take a look.  Thanks to a  canceled late afternoon appointment it was a go. If all seemed well she would come home with us.  We could have run up to Forsyth County Shelter this weekend where there would have been a hundred kittens to chose from, but I feared we’d be like dear in the headlights.

SouthernHope is located in a very nice strip shopping center in neighboring Roswell next to a Longhorn where we had eaten in the past.  The area is very upscale and the storefront was very nicely done with a nicely appointed waiting/interview area, glass cages for the animals, and an enclosed playroom for meeting the prospective pet.  When we got there Karma came right up to the glass to great us.  One other kitten had been adopted as we drove there, but Karma remained.  While there was only one other female kitten, a black cat that we weren’t really interested in, that was just fine as Karma seemed to fit the bill.  While my daughter went with Karma into the playroom, I started the interview process.

As it turns out SouthernHope is the adoption wing of the Fulton County pound.  It is a non-profit that I suppose may seem more palatable to some than going to a county pound.  It seemed more like a optician’s office than a pet adoption agency.  Whatever the reason for the separate entity, these folks are amazing.  The interview process is thorough and I’m sure quite effective at weeding out folks who should not be pet owners.  There is a decided stance against de-clawing, and I agree with that.  Every animal that is  adopted from SouthernHope is already spayed/neutered as this allows them to combat the issue on homeless pets on two fronts: finding them homes while ensuring that the animal doesn’t breed to increase the problem.  They are also micro-chipped.  To say that I was suitably impressed with these folks would be an understatement.  If our northern portion of Fulton County splits off to become Milton County once again (as it was before 1932) as is anticipated, I certainly hope that SouthernHope can be part of the new county or that we can duplicate it.

At any rate, Karma turned out to be exactly what we wanted.  They had described her on their web page as “sleek and laid back”.  While I don’t know about the “laid back” part, she certainly is pretty and sleek.  She’s a gray tabby with random stripes and polka dots (especially on her belly) with a raccoon stripe tail.  She also has a bit of a brownish cast to some of her stripes, a very subtle coloring.  If she were a pipe you’d call her a “mixed grain.”  She’s four months old and weighs in at four-point-two pounds.  She isn’t teeny tiny like Dewy was when we brought her home, but tiny nonetheless.  All Max wants to do is lick her.  The acclimation of the two will have to be slow as Max is rambunctious, but sweet spirited.

So, after paying $65 along with making a voluntary donation to SouthernHope, and tons of paperwork and instructions, we were on our way home with one quick stop to buy a feather toy and a Kitty Condo activity center.  We even took some time away from watching the Tribe kick the Yankee’s butt to watch a kitty care DVD.  Then finally after hours of discussion we chose my wife’s suggested name of “Iggy”.  She named Max so it seemed appropriate that she name Iggy.

Last night Iggy slept on our bed, swatting me on the head from time to time, as if she had been there for years.  

All good things…

(Dewy at 18)

 

On a wonderful autumn day almost twenty years ago to the day my wife and I were out on a Sunday drive basking in the splendor of the changing colors of the Chagrin Valley.  At the time our lives seemed to be surrounded by death as we had both been through the deaths of our fathers, and tough times were soon to return.  As we drove along the winding roads by the Chagrin River we felt a need to bring some life into our lives.  Only in the second year of our marriage it would be another three years before our daughter was born, and we were covered in the dog department, so we decided to bring a cat into our lives.  That afternoon we brought a kitten home that we named Scooter.

As time went on Scooter grew with our family, her name even changing to Dewy.  She was a feisty little cat as Torties often are, but warm and sweet when it counted.  She welcomed home my daughter as a newborn, and our last dog Mo with whom she spent fourteen years, and then Max.  It wasn’t unusual to see Dewy and Mo lying together intertwined, basking in a sunbeam, slumbering as only dogs and cats do.  Dewy was also my constant companion when I smoked my pipe, sitting and watching with rapt attention as the smoke swirled upwards.  The second she saw my pipe in hand she was at my side waiting for the show to begin.

The best part is that she was blessed with good health for almost all of her 20 years, the real decline only beginning in the past month.  When I left for my brother-in-law’s funeral last Friday I feared she would pass on while at the boarder.  She had hardly eaten for a number of days and her weight was down to just over four pounds.  When I went to pick her up (and Max) I feared that she would already be gone.  It was with relief that I brought her home to die.  Last night, after dinner, dragging her hind legs, her kidneys finally shut down, it was obvious that suffering had begun in earnest.  So, my wife, daughter and I took one last drive with her to the pet hospital to send her on to a final journey.

While twenty years is a long time for a cat to live and be part of a family, it is no different than what so many of you have felt with your own dogs and cats.  I know that so many of us have taken animals into our lives, and, have been made all the richer by giving to them, as they gave unconditionally to us.

So, we have begun the process of finding another kitten to bring into our lives, to give a homeless pet a home.  The goal isn’t to replace Dewy but to allow her to maintain her place in our family while we create a new place for yet another of God’s creatures.

 

Ming Destiny “Opus”

Nine years ago when I began Ming-Kahuna I kidded with my wife, borrowing from The Godfather with Michael’s promise to Kate, that in five years Ming-Kahuna would be legitimate (art).  Of course, that was only a joke. Ming-Kahuna tampers is my first love, but part of me wanted to take my craft into the mainstream art world.  From that promise, and desire, Ming Destiny was born.

Ming Destiny started out, and for years has been primarily TouchStones, the pocket sculptures.  Then, before my move to Atlanta, full-size sculpting with Diamas (my name for it) clear acrylic began.  Unfortunately, when I moved to Atlanta I lost my ties with the local galleries that were ready to sell Ming Destiny sculptures.  It is important for me to sell my work locally, close to where I’m at, and that now means Atlanta.  As it turns out, as it has all unfolded, I am now less interested in galleries (their percentage is way too high) and more interested in selling at the local art shows, hopefully eventually juried shows.  Shows to me are the best way to make personal contact with customers and patrons, an important aspect that has been key in the success of Ming-Kahuna.  In addition to shows there is the Internet, and to date that has been the contact point for the other Ming Destiny pieces that have sold.  Unfortunately the Internet is far form the best sales medium for selling three-dimensional objects that are next to impossible to photograph.  The photograph that you see above, hardly a good one, took well over a month and dozens of takes and required the perfect sunbeam on my kitchen table.  At best you can just begin to understand the shape of Opus.  With that as a given, let me tell you just a bit about this form of sculpture.

When I started this work with clear acrylic I thought that once again I was blazing a new trail.  With the first handful of sculptures under my belt I thought to do a web search to see if I was alone in what I was doing, hand carving sculpture from solid blocks of acrylic.  I was excited and comforted to find that I wasn’t alone.  Blazing one trail with Ming-Kahuna was quite enough!  It seems that a handful of years back a few very successful and famous sculptors began sculpting as I do with solid blocks of acrylic.  They call it “crystalline” which reflects the fact that the acrylics that we use are nearly optically perfect, more so than crystal glass sculpture.  The work of these sculptors sells for thousands of dollars but takes a figural form that, while beautiful, is not my style.  Please don’t confuse the works of these artists with the numerous acrylic animal sculptures that are out on the market, they are nothing alike and not nearly in the same league.  But, at any rate, it was a pleasant surprise to find that the precedent for this art form was already set and need not be created from he ground up.

So, unaware of the work of others, I had proceeded bringing my own style and artistic sensibilities to the art form, as if in a vacuum. The freeform organic shapes and styles of Ming/Kaze/Moxie were naturals for the acrylic that I have called Diamas.  The first sculpture was called Predator Shape Study “Fritz”, a piece that has been shown on the Ming site and resides in my collection as sort of a mascot.  Various spirals have been done and have sold around the country to people outside of the pipe community.  But, during that time the sculptures were not practical to produce.  Acrylic is very hard stuff and the blocks give way only grudgingly.  Then, when coming home from the CORPS Expo last year my good buddy Jeff Folloder suggested that we stop off at a woodworker’s supply store in North Carolina.  While in the store Jeff came up to me and plopped down into my hands a grinding tool that turned out to be the keys to the kingdom.  Finally, in addition to another tool that I had added a few years before, I could do pretty much what I wanted with Diamas.  Better yet, with one further simple tweak to the one tool, my abilities will be unlimited.  With these advancements I have been working slowly and methodically since, honing my skills.  I’m quite proud of my previous pieces, but with the piece that you see above, Opus, I have reached the next level.

Opus, as named by my wife while I was wet sanding the piece in the pool, is a most unusual shape.  The piece of acrylic from which it was sculpted is like no other that I have used.  When bought it was separated from the other acrylic and located by the polycarbonate, so its exact nature is unknown to me.  All I know is that I set the block aside with the shape that it would take having changed over and over again, developing for almost five years.  Then, one day I woke up knowing that it was the day to work the block.  It had to be so, and I made it so.  I had looked at that block of Diamas up on the shelf almost every day for years, and the shape of the piece finally locked into place.  Of course the piece that you see above varies even from that pre-carve locked shape, but that is the fun of art, rolling with the moment as what you see in your mind’s eye comes to be, leading to new visions and inspirations.

Opus begins up top as an almost Arashi tamper shape morphing into a somewhat Predator belly shape below.  As the piece necks down into the lower portion strong contours arise out of the organic spiral that come to define the shape below.  The upper and lower portions are very different but the transition and the continuation of a strong contour throughout brings the shape together offering a sort of complexity that holds one’s vision and interest rather than causing the eye to pass right over and away.  If each definite section of the piece is viewed alone the shape of the other section isn’t what you would predict, but, the two are fit for each other and one flows into the other without taking the piece into the realm of the mundane.  As I’ve said, my wife saw the shape of a penguin, something that I see as well.  Since seeing the penguin I have also seen the shape of the benevolent aliens, the Mondoshawan, from the movie The Fifth Element, especially when viewed from the side.  Please feel free to see what you want in it, like it or dislike it, or dismiss it altogether, or take pleasure in its form.

Overall the piece is approximately seven inches tall, three-and-a-half inches wide from front to back, with a width side to side of two inches.  The piece is much larger than that sounds and is not lost on a shelf with other pieces of art.  Size-wise this is a substantial piece.  As to the material itself, as I’ve said, Diamas is generally more optically clear than crystal glass.  The light refractions within are incredible and are a large part of the difficulty with photographing such a piece.  One advantage of Diamas over crystal/glass is that once glass is damaged repair is next to impossible and difficult at best.  Chips and scratches are often permanent.  With Diamas significant damage is far less likely to occur and chips and scratches are easily repaired to bring the piece back to new condition.  Often a simple buff is all that will be required.

Opus is being offered for sale. For information on pricing please go to: http://www.ming-kahuna.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=1043