While visiting the Academia Gallery in Florence, Italy, it was said that Michael Angelo's "David" was the result of the material guiding the hand of the artist. He saw more than a stone. He saw the human figure within and he cut away that which obscured it from our sight. The essence of this story left a deep impression on me. Beauty cannot be created by the artist, only revealed.
Bits of earth ground fine, mixed with polymers have been the instrument of painters empowering them to reveal the beauty latent in the natural pigments and to record the beauty before them. I painted fiendishly, but with time I only found disenchantment. The paintings became pictures, the pictures turned cliché. The tools of the craft, however, beckoned me back to the canvas, the foundry, and the potter's wheel.
A strange affinity for the craftsmen's tools quietly grew until I was no longer satisfied with the mundane tools produced by the monolithic fabricators of mass marketing. I felt compelled to make more than objects for visual enjoyment, but rather objects of beauty that enable the revelation of additional beauty. Hand tools of all kinds became objects of fascination, but none more than those used for writing.
I think of Mozart, Boccherini, and Chopin, whose creations still inspire, soothe, and convict us centuries after their demise. But for their writing instruments, their genius would only remain a ghostly sound within themselves. With out the pen, Romeo and Juliet remain a passing daydream in the head of the playwright. A mighty clash of arms brought death and destruction, where as the pen's stroke freed a nation of slaves.
For without the written word, the halls of history fall silent, the bard's tales are forgotten, and our spiritual heritage lost. How dare we reduce our finest gift to a tube of plastic packed with sticky liquid. I cannot think of more suitable materials to render respect than to look to nature and find those things which are inherently unique and beautiful. No man can create the unique grain signature found in a piece of exotic wood, nor can he replicate the subtle colorations of naturally shed antler. With proper craftsmanship, these materials can be rearranged into writing instruments suitable for our most precious enterprises.
The very nature of the materials I work with make each object unique unto themselves. Segments from the same tree or the same antler, even inches apart, take on an appearance that can never be replicated. As fine art should be, every piece stands alone as unique unto itself.
