Still Breathing…What’s in a name?

Here is another oldie from the “Still Breathing” section once on the Ming web site, a feature that preceded  this Blog. 

7/06/05-  What’s in a name?  That’s a fairly rhetorical question unless after 46 years you learn that all of that time you haven’t been using your proper given name.  Let me explain.

 

Last Friday my wife, daughter, and I made the trip to Lawrenceville, Georgia to transfer our Ohio driver’s licenses to Georgia.  The administrative bureaucracy in Georgia is not quite what it could be.  We had been warned that to get our driver’s licenses we should expect to spend the entire day at the DMV in a que that would rival those of the former Soviet Union.  We were also been told that some bureaus allowed appointments, the closest of which was an hour and a quarter away.  So, that is how I ended up in Lawrenceville, Georgia last Friday, the day that I learned my real name.

 

As I stood at the counter, with birth certificate, my Ohio license, and proof of residency in hand, the clerk, a most friendly young woman, copied my information down on a form.  As I watched her print out my full name, gleaned from my birth certificate, I interrupted to correct her.  My full name, as has been known to me as long as I can remember, is “Arthur Granat Ruppelt”.  Hell, I’ve seen it a hundred times, and there it is in big bold letters on my law license.  So, as the clerk printed “Arthur Grant” I chimed in.

 

You see, Granat is my mother’s maiden name.  I know it well.  It is my grandfather’s last name, the man who I am named after.  It’s a name of Swedish origin that has come to be a Scottish name.  Centuries ago many Swedes settled in Scotland, and some of them were Granats.  Granat in Swedish is the equivalent of “grenadier” which has since come to be identified as Scottish.  I’ve always been a Granat, proudly so, of that I’m quite sure.

 

Well, sure I was at least until last Friday.  As I questioned the clerk’s spelling, after some confusion, becoming just a bit perplexed she referred me to my own birth certificate laying on the counter before us.  There it was, right at the top: “Arthur Grant Ruppelt”.  As the sound of bagpipes and the slurping of herring withered away, all I could say, dumbfounded to say the least, was “oh”. 

 

So, after 46 years, the Great State of Georgia has informed this former Ohioan of his proper name.  I suppose Grant isn’t the worst of names.  I also suppose I should count my blessings that it isn’t “Sherman”.  Please note that this isn’t over yet.  The birth certificate that I brought to the DMV was a certified copy of my original, one provided by the Cleveland Health Department s the original was at that time misplaced.  Somewhere in the myriad of boxes that is currently my house lies my original which will hold the final answer as to my proper middle name.  I should be able to find it soon, hopefully by September or October……2010.

 

UPDATE: 5/30/08- The City of Cleveland Bureau of Vital Statistics has repeatedly sent the birth certificate with the wrong middle name.  They just continue to repeat their error over and over again.  So, my middle name is still “Grant”.  I’m wondering whether the error isn’t on the original certificate and my middle name is indeed Grant. The original birth certificate is still missing in action.

 

But wait, it gets even better.  Last year I was buying a pistol and the gun shop employee handed my driver’s license back to me and asked me if I had noticed something odd on my license.  The problem was that under  gender I was listed as an “F” rather than an “M”.  I looked up at him and said “holy crap, do you know what this means?  My wife is a lesbian”. (not that there’s anything wrong with that)  The boys in the shop got quit a kick out of the error, and it stayed that way for months.  I figured that I would get it corrected when the City of Cleveland saw fit to send me a correct birth certificate.  As it turns out I lost my wallet a few months back so I corrected the gender issue with a new license, and almost had the clerk convinced to change my middle name to the proper one.

 

So, now I can say, with head held high, that my middle name is Grant, and that I am a male, and my wife is a lesbian no more.

 

Life can be so complicated.

 

 

Still Breathing

I’ve had several emails from kind folks who have been asking whether everything is okay with me.  Nothing has appeared on this blog since the unfortunate Mr. Spitzer back on March 12th.  Hopefully he’s doing better than he was back them.  Me, other than being busier than two toilets on nickel beer night at the stadium, I’ve been doing swell. Swell indeed.  We had the annual spring vacation, this year to Key West, along with my daughter’s senior singing recital which included a whole house full of guests from the North, and her upcoming graduation.  Business has, as they say, been booming, more so than I ever imagined. So, as you might have guessed, time becomes rather short with not enough hours in a day, yatta, yatta, yatta.  So, like those big time newspaper writers do when they go on vacation (or a bender), I’m going to run some old pieces written from my pre-blog blog called “Still Breathing” that once ran on the Ming-Kahuna web site.  The name “Still Breathing” was in honor of my Mom who when asked how she was feeling would invariably say “still breathing”.  My response to that, sure as the sunrise,  would be “What’s the alternative?”.

So, without further adieu, here is a piece I wrote back in 2005 shortly after moving to Georgia about how stability and permanency are only an illusion, but very functional ones. 

7/16/05-  As we sat in our car in the Alpharetta high school parking lot at midnight last night, waiting for the bus that was bringing my daughter home from cheerleading camp on the Florida coast, I asked my wife if, a year ago, she would have dreamed that this is where we would be on this balmy Georgia July evening.  Of course the question was rhetorical, but this got me to thinking about just how much our lives can change, and so very quickly.  I’m not talking about change due to calamity or tragedy, but how our lives can change so significantly due to the choices that we make.  They say that fate is a double-edged sword, rough-hewn at best, but I’m thinking more here about where we take ourselves in life, fate relegated to a more minor role.

 

As the bus rolled up I found myself contemplating just how finely balanced life truly is, at times  seeming so stable, an unwavering foundation upon which our lives are built, taken for granted as much so as the dawn.  And while we do walk a fine line, much as a gymnast on a balance beam, seemingly firm and stable, not prone to tilt, the truth is that this relatively broad plane that we travel during the course of our lives, is mere illusion.  The stability in life that forms the bedrock of our sanity, allowing us to go on each day with a modicum of security in a perceived status quo, is in reality more akin to walking on a razor’s edge, each of us blissfully ignorant of the precariousness of our perch.  But, walk we do each day, thankfully unaware that we are mere performers in a tightrope act called “life” where the outcome is far less than certain, or pre-ordained.

 

Such is the human condition.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  

Doing the Math

So, Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York spent $4,300 a pop for some trim.  Now everyone is calling for his head.  While I can understand that, especially considering his squeaky clean image, I think the people of New York are possibly being shortsighted.  Let me explain.

I have a friend who is a great guy, until he gets married, that is.  He’ll admit it himself, that when the knot is tied he changes, and not for the better.  So, the last time he considered getting married, and this was after a series of failed marriages, he sat own and did the math knowing that he would end up back where he always was, in divorce court. He figured out how many times he had relations with his last wife.  He then took the amount that he had to pay his last wife in the settlement of the divorce (fortunately he had no kids) and divided it by the number of times that they had anything resembling sex.  He then took the going rate for a decent call girl (maybe not quite up to Eliot’s par) and multiplied that dollar amount by the number of times that he had sex with his ex-wife.  He then compared the two figures.  As it turned out, had he not gotten married and would have filled his sexual needs with those for hire he would have saved himself about .65 cents on the dollar.

Now let’s look at soon-to-be ex-Governor Spitzer.  Obviously some need wasn’t being met in his relationship.  He chose to stay in his marriage and looked elsewhere for that which turned his crank.  Maybe there’s some honor in that, or maybe he’s a cad, but that isn’t the analysis that I’m doing here. The fact is that if we do the math that my friend did,  Governor Spitzer was potentially way far ahead going over to Miss Kitty’s place and knocking off a $4,300 piece every so often rather than going the divorce route.  Okay, he got caught and that will cost him big time in the end.  Of course the pundits are saying that the psychology of it all is that he wanted to be caught, but I think that’s a load of crap.  All he really wanted was some trim and on some level I’m sure that he did the math that my friend had done and acted accordingly.

So why would the citizens of New York want to take another long look at Eliot Spitzer as their leader?  Well, the man is obviously a fiscal conservative.  This is a man that can most certainly balance a budget and is capable of financial analysis that could further strengthen the State of New York.  And while he may not be very adept at risk assessment, his is masterful in his cost/benefit analysis.  Better yet, the worst is now out in the open.  The skeletons in his closet are in full view.   Heck, had he been the governor of Nevada and his time spent at the Mustang Ranch he’d probably become a folk hero.  And while what he did is the height of sheer stupidity, I could easily make the argument that it was also brilliant, in a way, all things considered.  Of course, the fly in the ointment was getting caught. So, we shall have to view his actions in hindsight while lighting the torches and storming his Manhattan apartment calling for his head.  Me, I’m just hoping that he didn’t catch something and pass it along to his wife.  That would be a good start.

By the way, my friend who did the math ended up deciding  not to get married.  This was fine with his girlfriend, and they decided to live together instead.  That was going on twenty years ago.   The two of them are still together, inseparable, two of the happiest people that I know.

A good man always knows his limitations.

(Note: Please do not take this tongue-in-cheek piece to in any way condone what Gov. Spitzer has done.  It is does not in any way, shape, or form suggest that prostitution is an acceptable activity, at least where it’s illegal,  unless of course you really, really have to pay for it, and then there’s maybe a whole other set of issues going on including catching something that will make your bits fall off.) 

 

No rest for the wicked…

Ya know what?  I’m going to take today off and just lie around and watch movies.  Heck, I work 6.5 days out of 7 and 12 out of 24 hours, so I deserve the day off.  When I was practicing law full time and doing Ming pretty much full time I was putting in close to seventy hour plus weeks, so this is a cakewalk.   Yup, I’m just going to lay around like a lazy slug today and re-charge my batteries.  Yup, that’s what I’m gonna do, take Sunday off and be a slug.

But first maybe I’ll just head down to the shop for a few minutes and work an a few Pugs.  That’ll be that much less I have to do tomorrow.  Yeah, an hour should do it, and then I can be a lazy slug.  I’m glad I thought of that as I’ll enjoy my leisure time so much more knowing that I have accomplished something today.

And maybe while I’m in the shop I’ll work on the new Bullets project.  I’m running behind on that and I do have a teaser up on the site, so I really should get going.  So, I guess I’ll handle that while I’m in the shop.  I’ll be that much more ahead.

Oh, yeah, and while I’m down there I’ll work on filling some nodes on a few bamboo tampers that really need to go out.  Introducing bamboo in a significant way is way, way behind and there are couple of special orders that need to go out first.

And then there’s a Flux in Caneel I wanted to carve to match an incredible one that I just did in Bali.  And speaking of Caneel I need to make one in the new Dragonfly shape that is firmly pictured in my head.  I need that tamp to send to a buddy of mine in honor of his newborn son.  If I don’t get cracking on that the kid will be in grade school before it arrives.  Other Caneel tamps need to go to friends in New York and Virginia.

And all of that is not to mention that fact that since screwing around with getting motors working in my shop it is in such disarray that even I get jittery when I take a good look around.  I really should spend at least a few hours beginning to get organized. But heck, I can’t do that as I have thirty or so special orders carved and sitting in plastic tubs waiting to be sanded.  But first I’ve got to experiment more with stains so that I can get Hiras out of the shop and ready for shipping.  But first I need to get that new belt/disk sander set up, the one that has been sitting on the basement landing for the past two years.  The wife will shoot me if I don’t get that into the shop. Oh man, now that I think about it this is all just the tip of the iceberg.  There’s just so much to do and so little time.

All things considered, the real question is why I’m sitting here writing when I really need to be getting my butt down to the shop and putting my nose to the grindstone.  That way I can lie back like a lazy slug this evening watching movies.  I won’t even spend half the evening answering emails.  Nope, I’ll just spend the whole danged evening watching movies.  Yup, that’s what I’ll do.

Yeah, right.  

 

Beating the system.

If nothing else, my undergraduate degree in psychology (with an emphasis on industrial and organizational behavior) prepared me for a very frustrating reality of life.  We were taught a systemic approach where the core principle is that when you bring change it can have profound effects that are unanticipated and unforeseen far removed from the  original change.  It’s like shaking one limb on a tree causing the rest of the tree to tremble, maybe causing an apple to fall off on the far side of the tree.

So, when I had to replace my buffing motor this past week it should have been no surprise to me that it would not be as simple a proposition that it would seem.  Sure, it should have been a matter of unbolting one motor from my workbench and bolting on another, but when it comes down to actually performing the task certain realities set in.  Some motors run in different directions.  Arbors that are needed for the new motor, and not generally available in the Atlanta area, become frozen to the spindles.  With one seemingly simple change the factors that can negatively impact the change increase geometrically.  As one problem is solved the solution only leads to a new problem.  This went on for four days where I spent most of my time trying to break the chain of failures.  My work wasn’t getting done, orders weren’t going out, new pieces weren’t being made, and I wasn’t really interested in making excuses to my customers even though they are the greatest in the world.

So, finally, I put all of the washing machine motors aside, got into the car and went up to Lowes to see what I could do to get things squared away.  I was about ready to pull my hair out, so money wasn’t an issue.  At this point I was losing good money on a daily basis as business is exceptional and the loss is far greater than it would be during a slower period.  As  it is I get up every morning only to realize that there aren’t enough hours in the day, and that’s with working 12 hour days six days a week.  So, I walked into Lowes a defeated man willing to pay top dollar for a fix.

As it turns out the folks at Lowes were kind to me even in my weakened state.  The one variable speed grinder was a dual spindle (something that I’ve never had) and was the last one.  They sold me the floor model for 65% off.  I paid a whopping $50!  Problem solved?  Heck no it wasn’t solved!  Where my old single spindle motor could hang the buff off the edge of the bench, I now had two spindles.  This required a whole re-orientation of the motor to get both spindles in workable positions.  

So, to solve this latest problem I then built a special shelf attached to the edge of my bench that would hang the motor out with both spindles of use.  The problem seemingly solved I sat down to buff.  The first problem was immediately apparent.  I had moved my work station out from underneath the lighting.  I have four halogen dual light fixtures at each work station, in addition to my chandelier, and I found myself sitting in a relatively low light area.  It was also a place where there was no place to place my task lighting fixture or my buffs and buffing compounds.  But what was worse was that it placed the motor and buffs at a much higher level.  After ten years of buffing you get used to holding your work in a certain way and at a certain level to the spinning buff or sanding disk.  The muscles in your upper body even become attuned to that level, a sort of built-in memory.  Changing that at this point isn’t an option, and, there was no way to raise or lower the platform.  My chair could be raised or lowered, but not enough.  I even considered shortening the legs of my wood shop stool to bring me down to the buffer.

Without going into any more detail the next two or three attempts at solving my problem were dismal failures each leading to their own set of new problems.  With each problem solved new problems continued to rear their head.  It was like one of those bad dreams where you need to dial a phone number really badly but keep screwing it up.  Then, six days lafter this all began, I stepped outside the envelope and found my solution.  Thanks heavens.  I had orders for fifteen tampers that needed to go out on Friday, and it happened without a hitch. And now, on this Saturday morning I’m about to head down to the shop to carve some tampers.  Problem is that it just occurred to me that the disk sander that I use to do rough shaping won’t fit on the spindles of the new motor.  So, here I go again setting up a new motor for shaping, hoping the one motor that I have left (in a box somewhere) can be put into service without a hitch, ASAP.

Yeah.  Right.

Farewell my friend.

Ten years is a long time to spend together.  A bond forms in that time as countless hours are spent side-by-side, often pondering the mysteries of the universe, working together to create art.  So much goes unsaid, and by necessity.

And for all of that tireless work all that was required from me was a little support.  I look back now and think that had I been less diligent my good friend Delco may have departed much sooner.  I remember well the day that we met.

It was a spring afternoon.  I was driving to work, on back country roads, when I spied a card table out by the road covered with washing machine motors.  I have to admit that this wasn’t the first time that I had passed the roadside display, but on that particular day I stopped and knocked on the door.  An older gentleman with a kind face opened the door and I inquired about purchasing one of the motors.  He chuckled and pointing to the road he said “you don’t want one of those, come with me.”  I followed him through his farmhouse and deep down into his dungeon-like basement.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I stood there stunned, befuddled and speechless, which is quite an accomplishment considering my profession.  Before me were hundreds of washing machine motors stacked neatly on shelves, lined up like soldiers, ready for action.  I began to look for signs that I might be dreaming, but I was wide awake.  As I looked to the gentleman standing beside me who was beaming with pride, one single word escaped my mouth, almost in a whisper. “Why?”

My new friend let out a laugh while slapping his knee and said “I knew you were going to ask that, I love to see people’s expression.”  Kindly old gentleman or not, at this point I started gauging the necessity and logistics of a quick exit while looking for crawl spaces while sniffing for hints of lime and decaying bodies.  To be standing there on that balmy spring day in this now very suspicious gentleman’s basement amongst hundreds of electric motors, and his knee-slapping yucks, I found my self transformed into what might have become an episode of The Twilight Zone.  My inner voice became that of Rod Serling, and all of sudden I realized that Mr. Motor standing beside me looked way too much like Vincent Price for comfort.

Fortunately, before my Lorenzian instinctual impulse to flee could kick in, he let me off the hook by adding “Well, I collect them.  I’m a retired electrician”.  Okay, that was much better. The hairs on the back of my neck had even started to flatten, but I was still cautious.  He went on to say “Yeah, I’ve been collecting them for forty years and I’m moving to Florida, so my wife said I had to get rid of them.”  Allrighty then, I could understand that.  All of a sudden we had some common ground, ones well known to every married man.  It was a shared experience that mercifully served as a bedrock in reality.  It was a case of the wife complaining because we have “too much stuff.”  I gave the old geezer a knowing nod, having been there myself, and more than once.  As I looked to rehabilitated friend I found that while he did look a lot like Vincent Price it wasn’t the macabre version, but more the gourmet cook Vincent, one preparing a nice chocolate soufflé for a TV audience of bored housewives.  My personal safety now assured, my focus shifted to trying to recall how much cash I had in my wallet.

It turned out to be a measly eleven bucks.  Drat. Time was running short as I had to meet a client, and as it turned out this guy was leaving to head to Florida in the morning to have his son handle the packing and move after his departure.  I wouldn’t be able to get back in time with more cash, and this guy didn’t look like he took VISA, so I hoped eleven dollars would buy me at least one motor.  I opened my wallet and took out the cash and asked him what it would buy.  He told me that I could take as many motors as I wanted, and that all things considered, I’d be doing him a favor.  With that he led me over to a shelf and told me that those particular ones were the best.  They weren’t necessarily the newest ones, and I’d have to oil them once in a while through the ports with the springy lids, but that they didn’t make them like that any more. I took his word for it.  If anyone would know this guy surely would.  I chose six motors from the lot.  I didn’t want to be a pig about it.  I paid him the paltry sum of eleven dollars ($1.83 a motor), thanked him and wished him luck with his move, and went on my way.  As I drove away I noticed that high voltage power lines, the ones with the big towers, ran right by his house That gave me puase to wonder.

So, as I built Ming-Kahuna over the past ten years, I started out using one motor for buffing and grinding. I was an old Delco ¼ horse 1725 rpm with decidedly Art Deco lines, one with an external spring lidded cup for oiling.  Over the years Delco and I spent countless hours buffing thousands of pieces bringing life to my art.  And, as I’ve said, all that he required in return was a little support in the form an occasional pull from a tin of motor oil, to quench his thirst.  Sure, he had shown his age in the past six months requiring me to get his rpm’s up to speed with an assist from my hand, but to be candid, I’m not as quick as I used to be either.  Then yesterday, as I was putting the final buff on the Cumberland top cap of a Pug, Delco began to scream, belching thick acrid smoke, then,  his wheel finally coming to a stop.  I gave him a quick rest, tried him again, and with the same result.  Having no choice I pulled the plug flat-lining Delco, fading to black.

So, this weekend I will reach into my box of motors and choose another.  He may have Delco written on his name plate, but he will never truly replace my old friend.  Of course, the “new” one is a two speed motor, and Delco was only a one speed, so maybe change is good?  We shall see, but Delco will be missed.

Farewell my friend.     

Bonsai, again.

For me the art of bonsai is somewhat of a family tradition.  Growing up I watched my parents cultivate some magnificent plants. I would spend hours looking through their books dedicated to the art.  It was no surprise when bonsai followed me into adulthood. 

For the last fifteen years of the Twentieth Century I nurtured three bonsai.  Two were bought at a nursery, both Junipers, one wind swept in form and the other more of an umbrella.  The third was a juniper that I raised from a seedling that sprouted in the yard of my first house in 1985.  The plants grew wonderfully as I nurtured them meticulously pruning them and training their growth with the use of wires.  I was always light with the use of training wires as I considered the pursuit to be a partnership with the plant.   I wanted to capitalize on  the plant’s natural tendencies, imposing my will only when absolutely necessary.  Careful pruning was often all that was necessary to accomplish the greatest changes.  Things went well for years until one occasion when I left on a two week trip.

As it turned out, the person who was to take care of my plants ended up unable to do so, and did not enlist anyone’s help.  When I arrived home I found three plants so close to death they could not be revived.  I was devastated.  It wasn’t like losing a pet, but these plants had been part of my life for years.  I knew every aspect of them and had formed a bond with them, if such a bond is possible between man and plant.  I then turned my back on bonsai for years and didn’t look back, that is, until a couple of years ago.

Finally, I found that I was able to put the disaster behind me.  As I’d see bonsai at various places I began to think that I could begin again.  One time I even went back to a nursery to buy an incredible gnarled trunk leaf tree bonsai that must have been twenty years old.  The pot had been broken and they were asking a song for it as they had no desire to re-pot it.  Of course, when I returned the next day, it was already gone.  That was okay as I really didn’t want too established of a plant.  The art is in bringing the plant to that point, not to have it all done by someone else.  So, the search went on for the right young plant, one with potential.

The search ended yesterday.  After work I paid Harry’s Whole Foods in nearby Roswell a visit (worth a stop if you are ever my way) for some swordfish steaks.  Their fish/seafood counter must be seventy-five feet long. As I approached the store I stopped for a look-see at their outdoors nursery situated by the entrance.  Their selection of bonsai is usually fairly nice but nothing had jumped out at me over the past two and a half years of shopping there.  But yesterday, as I stood there in the rain, absolutely glorious rain considering our drought, I spotted one particular plant among the others.  As soon as I saw it I knew that my search had ended.  It was a Japanese juniper, and my preference had always gone to junipers.  It was marked as five years old, which was old enough to have a nice start but not too old to be set in its ways.  I stood there, a good part of the time in the rain, for what was probably twenty minutes, considering the plant as well as the others on the racks, probably a sorry sight to a passerby. Finally, I made the choice that I already knew that I was going to make, and gingerly set the plant in my cart. Soon I was on the way back home with my swordfish and Bonsai.  As I wove through traffic on Old Milton Parkway on that rainy ride home I felt like a part of me had been restored. It was like the return of an old friend.

As you may have guessed, the plant that you see above is the very same bonsai.  I see so much potential there, a tree that will allow me to stay with a light touch.  And while I hope to spare the training wire, I already see a thin limb in the back that could very well be brought up over the top of the canopy, or brought out laterally to create more of a wind swept effect.  But for now I will resist those temptations and be patient so that I can get to know the plant.  While not wanting to sound all mystical about it all, the art of bonsai is one of contemplation and patience.  And while the future of the plant will hopefully bring magnificence,  that should never be at the cost of failing to appreciate a single moment along the way.

Bonsai is far more than nurturing a plant.  It’s just as much about patience and taking the time to savor each moment of or life.  So much is lost if you never take the time to see.        

An Observation

Years ago as a psychology major  I took a series of classes dealing with perception. They were interesting but tended to be more mechanical and physiologically based than one might expect.  The issue of how our society can affect our perceptions of our world was never discussed.  That’s a pity because over my lifetime it has become increasingly apparent to me that how we view our world comes to be how we define our world, and those views are very much affected by the society that we live in.

A couple of weeks back I traveled to Cleveland to attend the mediation of a legal case that had been in litigation for almost five years.  As luck would have it, we were able to settle the case early on leaving me several hours to kill, so, I decided to visit a man who has taught me much.  Among other things he is a great collector of Japanese art and a patron of the arts. Japanese art is his passion and over the years he has taught me much about the subject.  As we sat in his office on a cool November afternoon discussing Japanese art, and to a large degree Japanese thought, he handed me what I suspect are the keys to the kingdom.  For one very clear and powerful moment I understood and felt exactly what he was saying, and it made great sense to me.  It explained so much and defined so much of what I have come to believe and set the stage for further contemplation and the growth of a very different way of looking at my world.

Here is how it was explained to me as we drifted onto the topic from a discussion of the double meanings of certain Japanese words.  Westerners view their world as one would view a video.  One moment is followed by the next with no differentiation, one moment morphing into the next.  The passage of time is marked in large units with tiny individual seconds lost to the vastly larger picture.  The focus is much more on the future, and to much the same degree on the past, but all at expense of the loss of the fullest experience of the here and now.  Understand that I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with that, but that is pretty much how it is when one compares how a Westerner views his world as compared to the Japanese.

The Japanese have an entirely different focus.  While the Westerner views the world as a video with no discernible moments, the Japanese view the world as a series of snapshot photographs.  Each moment is more precisely defined, each standing on its own.  Each moment is experienced and can be savored and sensed independant of the moments before and those after.  There is less of a hurry or rush to the next moment as each moment here and now is an opportunity, an experience, in and of itself.  While Westerners might focus on events in terms in minutes, hours, days, months or years, Japanese attitude allows them to focus on events (and the totality of those events) that may only last a single second.  They have a sensitivity to time that we lack with their basic increments for experiencing the world infinitely more fine than our own.

I know this may be difficult to fathom, and I admit that my understanding is more of  a feeling than anything that I can put into words, so maybe an example will help.  Suppose for a moment that a Japanese man falls from the roof of a tall building (so sorry!).  Suppose again on his way down to the ground below, which will most certainly result in his death, he looks up at the far horizon and off in the far distance he sees the peak of Mt. Fuji poking up through layers of clouds and mist.  It  may be the most beautiful thing that he has ever seen.  As he nears terminal velocity on his way to the ground below he only has time to see the view for a single second or two.  Much more likely than a Westerner, who will probably be spending his final moments either trying to figure out how he fell off of the roof  or anticipating hitting the pavement, the Japanese man is far more likely to experience the beauty of the moment,  allowing that one moment to stand on its own, despite the moments before, and the horrific moments to follow.

Okay, I admit that both the Westerner and Japanese man may both scream blindly all the way to the ground, but the example demonstrates the concept nonetheless. When you look at traditional Japanese art you see this over and over again, the celebration of the moment capturing something special in it’s momentary uniqueness.  It might be birds in flight, a wind blowing the hats off of workers in a field, or a procession of samurai, but each view is a snapshot.  Moments aren’t viewed in terms of their necessary passage to get to the next moment, but in terms of their own identity and the experience of sensing them to the fullest.  I also think that with that calibration towards the single moment comes a great understanding of time, and its preciousness, and an attitude of patience that follows.  Of course that may appear to conflict with the Japanese tendency to plan in the longest term, in years and decades rather than weeks and quarters, but with the understanding of the smallest moments comes an understanding of the passage of time.  I would argue that a snapshot view of the passage of time is almost a prerequisite for such long term planning with an intrinsic understanding and appreciation of the smallest increments of time necessary for understanding the largest.

This all may or may not make any sense, and may or may not be correct or accurate as to the notions that may be at the core of Japanese culture, but I see a truth in it.  As I’ve said, I can see it in much Japanese art, and, have sensed it in the work of Japanese pipe makers like Tokutomi.  So often their work must be viewed in motion to be understood, turning in the hand affording different views.  Each moment is a snaphot offering a view that stands on its own, followed by another, and another and another.  And when the totality of the viewing experience is viewed, a general sense of the piece’s shape, or being, is felt. The progression of the individual views offer the cohesion and flow.  Sometimes the next view is an unexpected one, but that is so much like life where subsequent moments can only be anticipated.  This is one reason why I so much enjoy my new Flux shape.  It’s as if it’s a single freeze frame of a shape in motion and not some lifeless object locked into a particular form for eternity.  The sense of there being previous and further moments in addition to this one single moment releases the piece while allowing it to celebrate that one moment.

Well, all of that might sound a bit crazy, but when you feel it and get an understanding of it the result is very powerful.  It allows one to focus their view in order to acquire a much larger understanding.  I like the word “calibrate” as that is what we do when we change our focus, in this case down to the single precious seconds that make up our lives.    

An Interview With Me

Some time back I prepared some interview questions that I didn’t use.  They were to be a sort of Vanity Fair back page kind of tongue-in-cheek piece.  As I’d never ask someone a question that I wouldn’t answer, I’ll take this opportunity to interview myself. 

Blog: Favorite music

Me:  My tastes are about as eclectic as one could imagine. I listen to most of my music while in the shop.  It can be Vivaldi, Steely Dan, Osamu Kitajima, Rammstein,  Kyori, Bond themes, ELP, Enio Moriconne, Vollenweider, Vangelis, Marshal Tucker, Jean-Luc Ponty, Alan Parsons, Yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber “Variations”.   

Blog: Favorite food

Me:  Pizza from Geraci’s back in Cleveland. White Castle. Cucumber salad. Thanksgiving dinner. 

Blog: Favorite beverage

Me: Twinning’s Earl Grey. 

Blog: Favorite activities 

Me:  My craft.  Night swims. Pipe and cigar smoking.  Listening to my daughter sing.  People watching.  Weekend day road trips with my wife and daughter.  Shooting.   

Blog: Favorite places

Me: Caneel Bay and Georgia. 

Blog: Tell us a little about your part of the world. 

Me: Far north Fulton County 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta is where I live.  The earth is red, the land is hilly, the Georgia pines tall, and the mountains are on the horizon.  My house is on a hillside, as are most things, as this is the foothills of the Blue Ridge chain of the Appalachian Mountains.  The sunsets here are incredible.  The ones depicted in Gone With The Wind are no exaggeration. The people here are polite and friendly.  And, see photo above for where I hang my hat. Okay, it’s one of those and I’m not saying which one.  

Blog: Hobbies

Me:  Shooting, bonsai, growing palms, modeling, radio control, writing, birding, astronomy, model railroading, tornado chasing. 

Blog: Preferred reading

Me: Ian Flemming, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Shelby Foote.

Blog: Describe a perfect day.

Me: Up early before sunrise watching the sun rise over the Atlantic.  A day in the surf fighting the waves.  Cocktails at five.  Surf and turf at seven. Cigars or a pipe at nine.  Loving at eleven.  The night sky until sunrise. 

Blog: Wheels.

Me:  2006 Hummer H3. 

Blog: Personal heroes.

Me: Akira Kurasowa, Luigi Colani, John McCain (not offered as a politcal statement), Mr. Smith (the fictional one who went to Washington), Gen. George S. Patton, Ghandi. 

Blog: Favorite movie.

Me: Impossible to answer.  I have a list of the top 20 top five!

Blog: Favorite tobaccos.

Me: Brindle Flake, Haddo’s Delight, Stratford, Semois. 

Blog: Most unusual thing that you have seen.

Me: A number of tornadoes, ball lightning, and a micro meteorite that landed about fifteen feet from where I sat smoking my pipe. I suppose I would have to add the royal straight flush (in spades) that I was dealt.  No one set the deck, I’d know, I was dealing.  Also, the bolt of lightning that hit me in 1981.  

Blog: Pets.

Me: Lhasa Apso named Max.  A kitten named Iggy. 

Blog: Do you play any musical instruments?

Me: Nope. I occasionally have the urge to learn to play the pan flute.  

Blog: Favorite joke.

Me: (warning, off-colored) Two mountain men are walking down the road when they come upon a dog lying in the middle of the road busily licking its testicles.  The one mountain man says to the other “I sure wish I could do that.”  The other replies “You can, but I’d pet him some first.” 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “mean people…”

Me:   …usually have issues of their own that make the grief that they are causing me pale in comparison. 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “If I could do it all over again I would…”

Me:  …have started Ming-Kahuna twenty years earlier, and, would have moved South then as well.  Of course, life is a process, and things happened when and how they needed to happen to be where I am today. 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “I am happiest when…”

Me:   …I’m creating. 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “I just wish…”

Me: That it would rain. 

Blog: Preferred weather:

Me: Sunny and 95.  I also like a nice rainy from time to time, but living in north Georgia I’ve sort of forgetten what that’s like.  Of course, i love a good thunderstorm.  I really enjoy watching the clouds building up during the day and then the rumble of far off thunder.  I love the moments right before the storm hits, the air sizzling with electricity, and then the silence and then the gust of wind with the first large drops of rain.  Each storm has it’s own cadence, a personality of sorts, making some more memorable than others.  I like to see how long I can stand outside beofre I chicken out and head in when the first close strikes of lightning hit.  I do not miss snow.

Thanks Bob

With Thanksgiving fast upon us I find myself considering the many, many things for which I am thankful.  The list goes on and on, but when I get to my craft, Ming-Kahuna, I can’t help but be reminded of all of the fine people who have inspired me over the years.  These folks, mostly unaware of their contributions, have led me to where I am today.  They have unwittingly helped to shape and mould my work that you see before you.  While there was no one in the very beginning to guide me with the creativity and mechanics of what would become a new craft, since then so many have taught me so much.  Many folks, if only through casual comments, have taught me about the pipe business.  At a time when an artisan selling on his own work was unheard of a few before me forged ahead creating what would become how I do business.  Other artisans have inspired me in the beauty of their artistry as well and the zeal with which they approach their craft.  Collectors have inspired and given me insight into my own work through their comments and suggestions.  Each person who has provided their feedback has shaped my craft and how I approach it, and, there have been so many.

Just as important as recognizing those influences is acknowledging them.  While it might be tempting to claim that one has done it entirely on his own, being a one man island, I would maintain that this stance would have to be less than honest.  We each are the sum total of our experiences, and, unless you live atop the highest mountain so many people touch us in so many different ways.  So, it came to pass that the other day while carving an especially nice little freehand in a new material I took notice of that little voice inside my head that guides me.  It’s almost always there, calming me down, allowing me to remain in the zone, while giving me the permission and freedom necessary to create.  While the thought had never occurred to me before to do so, I began to contemplate who that inner voice belonged to.  It wasn’t long before I had my answer.

Many of you probably recall Bob Ross.  Bob had a very successful show on PBS where he would paint a landscape during the course of the show demonstrating how it was done.  I recall many Saturday afternoons over the years watching Bob paint landscape after landscape, brooks, meadows, forest, mountains and sky.  He made it look easy, and maybe that was the idea so as to give aspiring new artists the courage to try (which is 99% of the battle) and some techniques to begin with.  With his happy go lucky patter, presented in tones not unlike Fred Rogers, the show was a sort of soporific mind candy that lulled one into a certain comfort zone, and, I suppose a certain pliability that may cause one to consider trying their hand at his art.  In essence, the man was a hypnotist.

Svengali aside, Bob Ross has stayed with me all of these years, and has become my inner artistic voice, for another reason.  One thing that Bob always stressed was that there is no right or wrong.  So many times he’d say something like “we’ll just put a little bush right here, or maybe a tree, there’s no reason not to, it’s your painting and you can do what you want, there’s no right or wrong.”  If Bob screwed something up in a painting he’d just change it and do it another way.  While Bob’s techniques were quite definite and well defined, there was absolutely nothing rigid in the ways that he applied them.  He gave himself the freedom to go with the flow.  He didn’t sweat it as he knew that there was always a Plan B available, one that wasn’t necessarily inferior to Plan A, only different.  I think that he implicitly understood that fear of failure can be paralyzing.  By taking the “fear of failure” component out of the equation he gave people the ability to give themselves permission to try.  To me, his attitude, and how he conveyed it, embodied the pure joy of art and the freedom of expression that lies at its very core.

Sadly, Bob Ross passed away in 1995.  And while this will sound rather corny, I have to say that a part of him lives on in me.  He has become my inner artistic voice.  He reminds me that there are no rights and wrongs, just choices and directions.  When one thing isn’t working that inner voice, Bob’s, reminds me that there are other directions to go, options that may be equally attractive that can and often do achieve even better results, and not to sweat it either way.  Bob constantly reminds me that what is being done is being done, first and foremost, for the joy of it.  Bob keeps me from becoming set in my ways so that I can experience the freedom necessary for my craft to remain fresh and new to me after the better part of a decade.  Bob, as my inner voice, is the artistic spirit.

Thanks Bob.  Mission accomplished.

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.

 

More on 9/20 entry and comment.

Hey Neill, thanks for your kind words. Rather than place this as a response in the comments section of the previous 9/20/07 I’m going to offer it as its own entry.  That comment was:

Art, this is a great post. I’m one of those guys who see the fabulous pieces here – and their SOLD status – and wish mightily that they were mine. Clearly, some of your custom work would sell over and over and over again. I’ve come to the conclusion that I just have to tell you what I want and then just wait for it to be made.I especially love that white material that resembles ivory with gold or brass. It is just gorgeous….Great post here, Art. A nice set of insights!!

I really do struggle with this issue as I’m sure many artisans do.  I’m very fortunate to have incredible collectors and established customers who have supported my work for years and continue to do so.  I feel compelled to reciprocate and respond in a like manner offering them my attention and consideration.  To me this only seems right and proper on several levels.

On the other hand, one must also be working hard to encourage new collectors and customers as this endeavor is an ongoing one.  Neill, you may note that this issue mirrors a discussion that we had some time back on Smoker’s Forum which dealt somewhat with putting all of one’s eggs in one basket. And while I’m fortunate to have numerous customers and collectors who greatly support my efforts, that still does little to promote new customers down the road.  I think that there are numerous ways to promote one’s work with potential new customers.  To date my efforts have met with mixed success.

The real problem is that most people new to the pipe smoking pursuit, or hobby, are fairly unlikely to be spending $100 on a pipe, and certainly not $100 on a tamper.  Even $40 on a tamper is a bit of a stretch.  So, efforts to create lines of lesser priced tampers have been a resounding failure and have been, except for TidBits, abandoned.  Another promotional route that I see some new artisans take, and one that I really had to take when I developed this niche, is to give pieces away.  The problem with that is that no one is going to say “no” to a freebie, and the chances of further interest is vastly diminished when there is a price tag attached.  And, no matter how much of an immediate splash that flashy giveaways make on newsgroups, once the prices are back and firmly affixed zero interest (beyond window-shopping) resumes.

So, how does one attract interest to new customers?  I suppose that all goes back to offering your best work and making it available on a regular basis to as many folks as possible while balancing that with supplying your established customer/collectors with that which they require to continue the journey with you as an artisan.  I guess there should be no surprise that the answer lies in striking a balance!

A double-edged sword.

I suppose that the whole business thing associated with being an artisan (or artist, I will use the terms interchangeably as I do both)) should be a simple matter. In its simplest form it all boils down to making something, and folks can buy it, or not.  But, as is usually the case, the devil is in the details.

I’ve been doing this for about a month shy of nine years.  Actually, it’s longer than that, but that’s neither here nor there.  What is important is that the nature of what I do, and how I sell it, has changed drastically over the years, always in a state of flux.  Early on all tampers sold were general sales.  I made it, showed it, and sold it.  Then, as my work became known, special orders became more common.  So did custom orders, the ones where the customer suggests some shape, one such as my favorite example “I want a tamper in the shape of my Aunt Edna’s nose.”  Custom orders have never been particularly well received as my work is about what’s in my mind’s eye, not someone else’s.  The goal is that we share that vision.  I’ve never been fond of the notion of being a human frazing machine where someone else’s vision could be brought to life through my hands.  What I do is about my own vision, and people either buy into it, or they don’t.

That said, special orders have always been different and far more desirable.  With these orders people request that I do work that is my own, maybe tweaking size, or material, or requesting a certain shape that is part of my repertoire. I’m 100% fine with that as what I am providing is mine to provide.  The end result is a Ming, Kaze or Moxie that could have come from my hands uninitiated.  And while there was a time where my focus was away from even these special orders, today they make up the vast majority of what I do.  Many of my customers and collectors give me free reign to make them whatever I want, while others have more specific requests.  Either way they end up with pieces that represent the artistry and craftsmanship that has brought me to the point where I’m at today.  If you think about it, to be able to work on a piece that you know to be already sold is an incredible position to be in, from a strictly business standpoint.  And while any piece that I have created has eventually sold, some sooner than others, such security as a pre-sold piece is a great comfort.  And knowing that any piece that you do for general release will probably sell without going up on the web site is equally comforting.

The problem with the foregoing is that like most things in life that offer a modicum of comfort there is a very distinct downside.  Like the title of this piece implies, the sword is double edged and cuts both ways.  The very distinct downside is that when you take the comfortable route it generally precludes taking a gamble.  Of course the businessman would ask why gambling would be desirable, but the artist knows the answer well.  Art is about taking risks.  It’s about pushing the envelope, to go where you haven’t been before.  It’s not about resting on your laurels as much as it is about building upon them.  There can be no growth without risk, and, truth be told, a risk well taken can provide the rush, the high, that keeps an artist going, ever striving towards some goal that I suspect (and hope) is unobtainable.

So where does all of that leave me with what I do with you, someone who might consider buying my work?  This question is very much on my mind, and especially so after a conversation yesterday with a friend/customer of mine.  He called to talk and to place a special order for a bamboo tamper, a request that he left me to do as I wish.  In passing he said to me that he loved the work that I have been doing lately but that everything that he saw was already sold. He was right on that, and I had no good response other than to say that I try as hard as I can to keep offering pieces for sale that folks can actually buy.  With so little of what I do even getting to the web site unsold the task of providing general release pieces becomes exceedingly difficult.  On the other hand, I’m just a little confused here.  If I go to my web site I find twenty-three tampers available for sale in a fairly wide variety of shapes and materials.  No, they aren’t brand new pieces, but I can assure you that they are as good as anything new that has or may come out.  So, I suppose that part of me notes that there is a good group of tampers sitting right there for sale, so I’m really not going to sweat it too much.  On the other hand, I understand human nature and understand two important aspects of the human condition: 1.) new is always better, and 2.) folks want most that which they cannot have. Those two aspects of human behavior go a long way towards defining my predicament.  Then, when you consider the fact that if people continue to perceive that you have nothing to offer then they will lose interest and go elsewhere, you can begin to see my position, one smack dab between a rock and a hard place.

So, what’s the net/net of all of this?  I’m not quite sure and I’m hoping that some of you might offer me some guidance on all of this.  I do know that I’ll continue to provide customers with unlimited access to place special orders.  The stability that they offer me allows me to continue all of this without great monetary concerns.  I also know that folks who have not placed special orders in the past are most welcome to do so now and in the future, or to contact me about what I might have in the works.  I also know that I’ll continue to work hard to develop my craft with new shapes and materials, taking risks and pushing the envelope, both with special order pieces and pieces that will be offered for general release.  Further, I’ll work harder towards offering more pieces for general sales, but at the same time I will continue to point out that there are already great pieces constantly being offered on my web site that also represent the best of my work.  Newer isn’t always better, sometimes it’s just the same as the older stuff, just newer.  And while folks may often want what they can’t have, there is a perfectly good Plan B available in existing pieces being offered, work guaranteed to please just the same.

Bottom line?  There are several ways to acquire my work if you are so inclined.  My goal is to make each of those ways a completely enjoyable experience. Your suggestions as to how I might approach this issue are most welcome and appreciated.