SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the good old lady. I am your host, I'm beer. And join me as we talk to other knife makers and crafters about anything and everything in the nice. I can't introduce my next guest without being honest about how hard introducing her has been to write. How do you encapsulate almost 50 years of art and metal and over 30 years in art knife making? How do you truly put into words the magic that she's created in her work and the mythic proportion her life energy has produced? How do you describe magic, or better yet, the expression of one's soul through their life and work? There may not be a single word to describe all of the things that she does or has done, but there is a singular word that tells you who she is, and that's Delena. Delena, it's an honor to have you on the Good Old Blades podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for asking me.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, well, it's it's an extreme pleasure. Um I I would consider you in the grand scheme of what I've been trying to do with the podcast a white whale of sorts. Um I've I've I've you know, there's like I've had Steve Johnson and Bruce Bump and a few other really great, you know, like leaders and legendary knife makers in the industry and everything on on and talk to them. And I've always, since before I actually started the podcast, always wanted to be able to have you on and talk to you and really get in depth with your um with your knife making career, but just uh kind of what what uh spawns and uh your your like the creativity and the the objective lens that you look at um are and so uh I a long time coming. I really appreciate you investing the time and sitting with me and talking um and you know especially for my listeners because uh like almost I would say probably almost uh indiscriminately, everybody I've ever talked to loves you and loves your work and everything.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

So that's very nice to hear. Thanks for telling me that.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah. So um I there's kind of this uh weird uh weird conundrum that we have in the industry where a lot of people don't know the giants that we're uh resting on the shoulders of. And uh because of that, I'd like uh I I I think I would like for you to give a brief introduction of yourself just for the idiots in the room, um like myself being included, but uh just just so everybody knows kind of like you know, uh uh a 30,000-foot view of you know who you are, um kind of what um uh what you've done in the industry uh through your your eyes and everything. And that way we can get past the introduction component and really talk more about all the things that I want to talk about versus just you know people understanding who you are and what you have been doing in the industry for um as long as you have, if that works for you.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Sure. Sure. Uh well I've been a full-time maker. I went full-time in 1995. I had started learning from Jim Schmidt in 1993, but before that, I had been a full-time goldsmith and art jeweler for 17 years. Um, I went to art school at Skidmore College and really focused on jewelry then, loved metal, just absolutely adored working with metal. And I had the opportunity at a museum craft organization that I was a part of, um, I had the opportunity to meet Jim Schmidt. And when I saw his work, it was just blew my mind. I absolutely adored his knives and I loved folding knives. And it turned out he didn't live very far away from me. And long story short, at one point I ended up going to his shop. I I had an ex-boyfriend at that time that thought he might like to make knives. I remembered Jim and I said, Well, I can ask him if he would talk to you. And we ended up going up to Jim's shop, and he's he was very gracious, and he was going to be forging some steel, so he had made up a couple extra billets so that my ex-boyfriend and I could try it. And I tried it and I absolutely loved it. It was instantaneous, just a magical experience that I absolutely adored and wanted to do forever. And um, the boyfriend was incapable of doing it, and he was afraid of the forge and afraid of the hammer and everything else. So that was gone after that. But I'm grateful that because of him, I got to I got to find this magical thing that I love to do so much. And um I had no clue who Jim was in the grand scheme of things, none whatsoever, because he's a he was a very unassuming man, man of few words. He did not suffer fools gladly. I didn't know any of this about him, other than that he was a man of few words at the time. He was just someone that lived near me that would let me come and play in his shop. And he taught me how to make folding knife mechanisms because that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to make folding knives, and that's was my first knife, it was a folding knife. And um he he said, Well, you might want to go down to the New York Custom Knife Show and see that. And so went down and looked at that, and I was just uh blown away by all these knife makers and all of this. And I just loved the idea of being able to forge the Damascus steel and then uh use my skills as an artist and a goldsmith to add precious metals, which I also love, and gemstones into the whole artistic vision that I would have for each piece. And it turns out that I did. And he um he enjoyed working with me because I had the I already had metalsmith knowledge. I was an experienced metalsmith. One of the main things that was helpful was that I knew how to finish things well, and I understood certain concepts about working with metal and things like that, that he didn't have to take me from day one with no knowledge. And so I think it was fun for him to have somebody like that that was very eager to learn everything, but could take it away and do it on my own in my own shop or studio is what we'd I called it at the time. And then go back and show him what I would had done. So that's kind of a really short version of my how I got to where I am.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yeah. Well, I and I can imagine you know, something that I think about with uh with teaching is y especially in in a craft, there is an awful lot of energy that goes into passing knowledge from one mind to another, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Tremendous amount of energy.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah. And and I I think that uh one of the conundrums with being a teacher is whether that energy is well spent. And uh there's i I I love the the collaboration and the knowledge sharing that goes on inside of the knife industry today. But I think the same way that um the younger generation considers knowledge and inflamm as being um a given, especially because of the internet and all of these modalities that we have for education, that we kind of take we take that for granted. So, you know, you have like you know, Bill Ruppel or somebody like that who will spend an awful lot of time answering questions over and over and over again for uh people who just want to learn from the master. And none of those, like maybe, maybe a very, very, very small percentage takes that knowledge and does something with it. And and even fewer still take that knowledge, do something with it, and create something that is unique and um is interesting, I I guess. You know, I I always look for interesting people when I try to educate, um, you know, they want to take this to a different level, like see see the world in a way that I don't see it. Um, and I can imagine that uh Jim saw you the same way.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Um I think he did. And he one of my very strong feelings at the time when I started working with him is that I already had a um I knew how to express myself and my ideas um on my own without copying someone else. And it was very important to me when I came into this that my work did not look like his at all, uh other than the quality. That's I would emulate his quality, but I did not want people to say, oh, that's one of Jim Schmidt's type of knives, because I saw a lot of those type of knives, and I just did not want to do that. I had my own ideas I was gonna do that, so I did that immediately. I just started doing my own designs and working from my own voice, and he I think he really enjoyed seeing what I would come up with too. And I want to go back here to what you were saying about the um about learning and how easy it is to find information now, because it's when I started as a jeweler back in the 70s, of course there was no internet, that wasn't even thought of as far as I know, and it was the jewelry industry was very closed. There was not a lot of information given. There were not was not a lot of help available out there. I went to art school, which is an entirely different situation from learning technical skills from other jewelers, and it's a much more closed-off, um fearful industry than than the knife world was. When I came into the knife world, I was amazed at the generosity of information that was freely given in with a great attitude. I was really amazed at that. But when I first started, I actually made my first knife in 1978. I made a little slip joint folder. I found it the process in a book called Um The Penlin School of Craft book. There, it was the first one. People may know the second edition of it, which is an entirely different book with entirely different projects in it. But all I had were some photographs of knife parts on a piece of graph paper. And I followed the instructions from that. I had no idea what I was doing. I had didn't have the tools to work with steel at all. But the the process took you through annealing an old file, cutting the blade out, and then creating this slip joint mechanism. And I was immensely proud of this when I finished it. I was a young military wife at that time. And my ex-husband was stationed in Pearl Harbor, and he had gone out to sea, and I I didn't know anybody, and I didn't have access to anybody that could tell me anything about how to do this. I would go over to Hickam Air Force Base and use their machine shop too to drill my pivot hole and my handle holes, and not one guy in there would talk to me because I was a complete oddity in 1978 being over there. They never saw a female in that shop and I didn't know what I was doing. I must have broken 12 drill bits trying to do what I was doing. But I managed to do it, but there was no source of information for me to go to at all. And it's so entirely different now that it's perspective, is is really such an interesting thing. It makes you appreciate. I mean, I see people giving away information and just throwing out all of this information. It's like, wow, it's so amazing to be able to find out the answer to any question you have just by typing it onto a keyboard. It's just amazing to me.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah, but on uh conversely, it's it is sometimes a little bit annoying too. And I say this in the sense that I, you know, uh everything before the proliferation of information was was really considered trade secret, right? Uh, you know, the masters would would toil over learning this stuff, and it felt like you know, you had earned a seat at the table if you could figure out a way to do this stuff where you you know you didn't have to ask anybody that you it you I ideated, right? And there are certain things that to me are like givens in knives. Like, you know, if you want to do a good like hand rub satin finish or something like that, or you want to do a very basic like low-layer Damascus or something, right? Um there's it's pretty straightforward now, or it's common knowledge, but then there are other things that are like you know, technique or nuances that are are hard-earned, like how did you do this specific thing? How did you do a keyway bolster or um finish something out in hide pins like you know, frame um frame knives, or you know, how did you do certain things inside of pocket knives? And I I think that there's a little bit of a fiduciary duty that we have as knife makers when we're when we're learning things from um people to understand what is what is freely given uh like and free like common knowledge to get us up to up to par and what is like rented knowledge, I guess I could say. Um like for instance, um your Delena dots uh system on your knives is something that is very widely copied um by knife makers. But I uh it it is, but very like very seldom attributed or attributed to you as the maker uh who started doing that. Um and and that's something that is a little bit frustrating in some ways, and I've talked to uh uh Steve Schwarzer about this, is you know, when you learn something, you do have a responsibility in some way to uh carry on the legacy of that knowledge, the um uh the provenance of that uh for the people who have taught you. And it's something that kind of gets slighted a little bit more in the industry than I'd like to see.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

It does. It does. Um and I I when I first did that invented them because I had to, because I had an issue that I had to fix that, but that was the only solution I could come up with. Um when people saw them, it was new and it was it worked so well that they you know wanted to use them. I understand that completely. And I that thrilled me. And as a matter of fact, Jim Schmidt when I because I asked him before I actually did it, because I hadn't seen anybody do anything like it, and I was concerned that you know, maybe it was like an unspoken no-no that you didn't put anything on or through the blade like that. And he looked at him and he said quietly, because I mean he I went and showed him the knife. I w the problem was that I had not anticipated that the thickness of the scales, if the blade sat in that far, it was going to be hard to open it, to grab a hold of it and open it. And it was my second knife, and I, you know, I didn't know what to think to look ahead, the problems and things that you learn to think about. So I couldn't get this blade open without a lot of pain in the neckness involved. And I I hate a nail neck. Hate them. I think they're ugly and they are functionally very difficult to use. And I just they would not have a nail neck would not have gone with the design that I was doing, and I wasn't gonna even do that. So I thought of something else, and I took my problem to Jim, said, This is what my solution, this is what I'm thinking of doing, is this something that would be frowned upon. And he was looking at the knife and he looked at me and he was a man of few words, and he was quiet for a minute, and I think, oh dear, he's just trying to be polite. And he looked at me and he said, Um, that's a great idea, and I'm gonna use it. Or actually, he said, I'm gonna steal it, but I'll call him Delena Dots. And that's how the name came to be. And um that was such a thrill for me that he thought my idea was good enough to do. And he always called them Delena Dots. And I had an a lot of knife makers that wanted to do them that did ask me if they if I minded, and of course I didn't mind. I was thrilled that people thought it was a good idea. I just finished writing an article for Blade Magazine about how and why I invented Delena Dots and also how I make them. And I don't use a lathe when I make mine uh because I didn't have a lathe that wasn't in my mental vocabulary to think in terms of using a lathe. So when I invented them, I made them a different way. And I've detailed in the article exactly how I do that. And I haven't left anything out, and I've given some information that uh most people that don't have my background might not think of to do. So I hope it's helpful.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah. Well, um, I'm kind of reminded reminded in the process of making, well, your knives entirely. Uh the your dot system is it usually uses uh precious metals, right? Those are gold typically.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Always 14 carat or 18 carat, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yeah. Um as a as a knife maker who's invested in uh in materials and things like that, um I I've I've always noticed that there's kind of like this this quandary where uh when you're when you're adding certain type of type of materials in that it increases the cost of a knife and thus kind of changes the market and everything on uh who will buy it. With with you starting off using precious metals and precious stones and everything um as part of your um your um art expression, has that uh ever limited the audience or the the market that you can then um sell your knives uh because of what you've chosen as your medium?

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah, absolutely. Um I the first knife I sold was in 1990. I think it was ninety-four, and I sold it for twelve hundred dollars, which was a lot for a brand new maker. And there was a bit of resentment about that fact, but I think that people didn't understand. First of all, I'm using precious metals. I started then all you know, all the pins in my knives are 14 karat, you know, that big thick eighth-inch pin pivot pin is pretty pricey, you know, just in materials alone. Yeah. And um, but the collectors that saw it that wanted it and that were in that price bracket were delighted to see something different. It wasn't that they're buying gold, they're buying my ideas, which are different, which is really what um set me apart. And I think there's two things that set people apart in um when you're making uh things by hand. And one is design and the other is finish. And if you can combine those two things. If your design is unique, you're you and appealing, um I think that your the buyers will find you. I um as I said, I had already been a goldsmith for 17 years. I was actually an art jeweler. I didn't work in a jewelry store, I didn't own a jewelry store, I didn't want to be tied down to a a retail store situation. Um I sold in galleries across the country, including one on Fifth Avenue in New York. And so I was used to I knew how to price, I knew what my clientele for my jewelry thought in terms of pricing and value and price points. So I wasn't intimidated by that when I started with the knives. I just thought I'll put this out here. I love to do it and see what happens. I wanted to do it, I wanted to do it full time, but I I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't feeling like I was getting paid enough to do it either. Um because I already had a another business with a market that I could do. I wasn't knives take so much longer than jewelry, particularly folding knives, I just take forever, particularly when you get into the detailed stuff that I do that I like to do. Um I had I definitely had a boost up the ladder by knowing Jim, Jim Schmidt, because he had a great number of collector friends, and he was absolutely so sought after. And because he would introduce me to those people, I am so grateful for the opportunity. I have never not been grateful for it. Um, and when I started to realize exactly who he was in the knife world, it was just one of those feelings of being so fortunate to have had this opportunity because I was able to start where if I didn't have that and I wasn't seen and I wasn't introduced to collectors that could afford my work and wanted my work, um, it would have been a lot harder. And I am not um unaware of that.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah. Well, and I I think that's something that um with the proliferation of knowledge and everything, there's also a weird paradigm that I've noticed where uh sometimes it's a little bit harder now to get the nod uh from from certain uh premier makers or whatever uh than it seems like maybe it used to be. And it could be a totally anecdotal observation, but um uh I um I I've I've been able to work with um a few really great makers, um, but it it seems like by and large, when you get to a certain echelon of making and you have a certain customer list and everything like that, that's really pr very protected because that's your you know that that's who who you sell your own work to. And then to introduce a protege or whatever into that same market means that you do have some level of competition, as it were, uh, for the dollars that those collectors have. And so I've noticed at least that you know, getting validated by a a you know, a maker that is, you know, has a good reputation and everything is a little bit um is a little difficult, especially as somebody who's, you know, I've I've been in it what, seven, eight years now. Um getting a getting a nod is is kind of a tough thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Well it's again, I think with the proliferation and the uh ease of getting in touch with people now, anybody can go online and pretty much talk to anybody now. And you know, if you're on Facebook or Instagram, you can comment on their stuff. So there's this it's not as hard and it doesn't take a tenth of the effort that it used to take to talk to somebody in that echelon. And so I think sometimes it's I don't know how do I want to put this? Um that the new makers don't understand the value of the person that they're talking to. Not the value of the person, but the of the knowledge that that person has. Do you understand what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah, it's it the res it's respect, right? I mean, at the end of the day, that's gonna be a good thing. Yeah, that's it, right? I mean, we don't like new makers don't respect the the harder knowledge, the connections, and everything. They take that for granted and they walk into it and say, okay, you know, let me give give give me your entire Rolodex. And you're like, uh, do you even know what a Rolodex is? Like it's it's it's like I've had to culminate all of these all of these entries one by one, and all of those represent like a an entire relationship that you have no no uh concept of, and you just want to give it to me, kind of like it's some you know, sales book or whatever. It's like, you know, calm down, young and right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

I mean I I remember um like maybe the second year I was making knives and and I had been I I'd already been mentioned in that in Blade magazine. So this you know, people were starting to hear my name and my knives were being pictured in there and stuff like that. And um I had one guy contact me that wanted like a $400 knife, and I said, Now, when I say contact, of course, this was not online somewhere where he just typed it in and sent me a message. He sent me a letter and he wanted a knife, and I wrote him back. I mean, this concept is so bizarre to people these days that somebody would have to write you a letter because I wasn't real free with my phone number at that time either. But um he wrote me a letter and he wanted a knife and I wrote him back and I said, I'm sorry, but I don't make a knife any knives in that price range because I was already busy. I I was still making jewelry at that point, and then just transitioning over into being a full-time knife maker. And I had a lot I'm starting to get people that are waiting for my knives and stuff, and I just said no, I couldn't do it. And he was very angry with me, and he he wrote me back and he said, I mean, he really told me how horribly thought it was that I wouldn't make a knife in his price range, and it was just so um it didn't bother me because I just realized that he did not understand my my perspective and what I was talking about. I wasn't meaning to be um arrogant or anything, it's just this is a business decision, you know. Yeah, yeah, I just couldn't do it. And um, but that that that interaction has always stuck in my mind. Um and I think the temptation can be for new makers that you gotta take everything that comes along. And I had already been through that phase as a young jeweler that I didn't know how to price and I didn't know how to handle my own feelings about prices because um it's very difficult to get over that. Well, I can't afford this thing that I make, and it's really hard to ask somebody else to pay for it.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

If that makes any sense. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

I mean, I I encounter that a lot with my own work, and it it has a lot to do with the fact that um I I know the value of my time when it relates to what my primary vocation is, which is cybersecurity and and technology, right? You know, I've I've spent a long time cutting my teeth to gain the knowledge that I have and everything. And um, and so I expect that that carries a certain you know uh dollar amount either per hour or salary or whatever. And so over the over the years, you know, I've gotten um I've I've gotten to a place where I feel like I I deserve to be well paid for the level of effort and the knowledge that I bring to the table. But in in knives as a part-time vocation, uh, you know, I sometimes I I don't feel that way. It it's sometimes, you know, I think that I have a a problem uh giving myself the permission uh to charge what I feel my value is, even though the industry in some ways does not qualify new makers at that tier of pricing. Um and but you know, kinda it that's that's I think a personal thing that everybody has to struggle with and gain confidence over. And you know, one of my things has been well, if it if I want the dollar amount uh to be what it is, then I gotta put forth the effort to resolve the fact um that my piece is is um it is priced the way that it is. You know what I mean? Like you can't you can't have shoddy work, you can't have uh you know non-symmetrical grinds. You like your your fit and finish has to be on par with what you're going to be asking for. And that's kind of where I start and stop with the um the perceived value, because you know, I mean, we all know like the amount of time that we have in these knives, um and in in the materials and things like that that we use, uh, break-even is a really hard concept when you start removing just the raw cost of material, and then you talk about your life energy and how how many other things you're sacrificing in order to make this thing for somebody else who just wants to put a dollar figure on it.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. It's um that is a constant struggle. The pricing is a constant struggle in terms of I can I know how to price things, I know how to set those down, I know the formulas. I have been doing this a long time. I don't have not had another job since I was in high school. And I've been an artist, this is what I do. And it's very difficult sometimes to wear that business hat that says, this is how much you need to charge for that. If you're in business and you wanna, you have to make a profit if you want to stay in business so that you can buy that other tool or or take another class or do whatever. And that is a really, really difficult thing to deal with. The the the psychological aspect of that is can be really hard. And it's still not easy for me. It's I I don't know if it ever, I doubt it will ever will be, but it's an overriding of the um my own mental discomfort uh about that number.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Well and one thing I see uh I I s I um I'm I still I'm still interested in jewelry because I do um just love precious metals and and working with those. I I do the occasional piece of jewelry if somebody really wants something that's um gonna be fun to do. And I am in uh some jewelry groups on Facebook, and I it's always interesting to me to watch the young makers who they can't I mean they're they're using precious metals and they but they're practically giving them pieces away because they're not charging a a a correct pricing structure for for their work and it hurts them and it hurts the industry. And yet I understand it completely because it's very, very difficult. One thing I had to come to in my mind was the understanding that there is a market for every single price point out there from the least expensive to the most expensive, it's kind of pyramid shaped because if you're gonna do the most expensive, there are fewer buyers at that price point, but they are there and yeah, it's it's for me, it's always been an understanding that that's just another hat to wear if you're gonna be an artist. If you don't have a manager, if you don't have somebody else to say what you should charge and make your sales for you, you're gonna have to do it yourself. And it if you can kind of view it as another art form, it can become a little more comfortable that way.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah, I agree. Well, I mean, it's it's also um how many million-dollar ideas are out there, right? And it if and if you have a million-dollar idea, you might be able to make a million dollars at it. But if you're just being derivative and and have you know a $500 idea, well, then that's what you're gonna get. And and I think that there is that creative paradigm where people want um I attribute it kind of like a so I we have an um eight and a half year old. And you know, she comes to me and she draws a picture or she, I don't know, hops on one foot or whatever and says, Hey dad, look at this. It's like this is super cool. And I'm like, the first time I see it, it's like that's pretty great. You know, you you've learned some new skill or whatever. And the second time she comes and she wants to get the same response, I'm like, nah, you can do better. Like, like you've already reached this idea or echelon, right? Like you can do a little bit better, like push yourself, uh push yourself to do something different and intrigue me. You like you want the accolades of admonishment and everything, you know, do something a little bit different. And I like that is the same with the development of ideas and the development of um um, I guess like a personal bar, uh like you know, setting a bar of achievement, is that if you want admonishment for something that is out-of-the-box thinking, you have to first think out of the box. And you have to understand what it means to push beyond the creative boundaries of what everybody else is doing and into something that is exploratory. Yes, and yeah, that's where you get paid. Well, because it's like um, you know, with with your with your knives, I look at them and I I constantly sit here and wonder what gave you this idea to do this thing in this way, right? Um I I look at your work and I'm constantly fascinated with where the inspiration comes from, and then a layer beyond that, how you technically executed it, and um, and then maybe I wonder, hey, is there ways to incorporate that kind of conceptualization or whatever into my own work? But then I go back to uh uh you know, I I don't know if I necessarily am that smart. I don't have, you know, super creative ideas like that in some ways. Um, and like you you just think so far outside the box that you like your knives are million-dollar i ideas, and people who have that money uh are willing to um exchange their their dollar widgets for a the ability to sit here and hold this thing and admire it and and collect it because what they are holding is is uh two things. One is your mind in the ideation that it takes to create that thing, and the other is your life energy because it took you time, finite time, to make it and to bring that to the world, right? And and to me, there's really no there's really no good way to price that because you're I mean, how do you price somebody's soul or life energy or whatever? And that's that's always the conundrum.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Well, uh two things here. First of all, I view money as a form of energy, and it kind of takes away some of the intimidation factor of the of the having to earn the money. It's just a form of energy. In terms of the ideas, uh I I was very fortunate to grow up with a mother who was an artist. She was a graphic artist, she worked in advertising. She was very creative in uh pretty much all areas, and she was very interested in encouraging my sister and I to be creative in whatever way we wanted to be creative. Um she made sure we uh went up to whatever classes we had any interest in. She hated to sew, but she saw that my sister and I liked the idea of it, so we went to singer sewing for sewing classes and all of this during you know late childhood and teenage years. So I had this idea that you know you could make things, you could make anything you wanted to, basically. It was just learn how to make that thing, and then your ideas you could make whatever your ideas were. Um, when I went uh ended up in college with uh in the metals program, I was very fortunate again to have my professor was Earl Pardon, who was an extremely important studio jeweler in um middle of um the last century. He was fantastic and I I loved his work and he was what he thought out of the box. But for some reason, the way he taught how to design just clicked with me, and it's I was able to get the feeling of how you do that because there's and this is gonna start sounding a little weird, but there is a feeling that goes along with doing anything. Well, um when an athlete practices, practices, practices, and finally gets to a level of competency where they're really, really, really good or the best at what they do. That's because they have learned to be able to repeat the feeling of that act being perfectly done, resulting in whatever the end result, the best possible end result is supposed to be. So I look for that feeling involved or vibration, if you if you want to call it that, of doing that thing or that idea at the highest level. Does that make any sense? Is that too out there?

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Oh no, no, no. I mean, I I I uh I'm picking up what you're throwing down. I mean, I you know, like like uh for for me, like the esoteric nature of things is something that is very um familiar. Like I'm always I I don't know why. Like maybe I I've just I've if I think back to like when I was a kid and everything, I've always been a little bit, I guess, um like thinking on the spectrum, as it were. Um I can remember going out as a kid, and you know, my you know, we grew up in the late 80s, or I was born in the late 80s, but you know, uh in rural Appalachia in Pennsylvania, where we were from, we were uh a few things. We were poor, um, we were uh not really well educated. Um like uh you know, like if you were one of like fixed tractors or um know how to raise cows or things like that, you know, like rural intelligence, um like salt of the earth people, right? But um my mom would like kick us out and say, hey, go play outside or whatever. And I would sit there and like look at leaves and uh wonder why the the leaves uh had veins on them, right? I mean I was like You know, six years old or whatever. Um and you know, I always I like as I think about the way that my mind has worked from a very early age, I've always wondered what is the thing behind the thing, right? So like like being able to look at the layers below the surface and understand like c the causal chain and everything. And so that the concept of esotericism and uh um spirituality and um you know what makes magic magic, right? Um, those are all um interesting to me. And I and I think like uh in general, the listenership of the podcast is that way too. They come here to to kind of get a little bit more beyond the surface of knives. Um so I totally understand that. And I don't think it's kooky either, um, because a lot of us experience these things in some ways, but uh uh I think that there's also not a lot of articulation around like like naming things. Like you and Van are big on vibrations and um and energy and things like that. And to me, that is a perfect representation of it because there's there's this big question mark around what causes us to create things and what causes us to go down a certain path or follow our gut or um live in this um in the zone of passion, right? And and I and I think that we we are all using um maybe different terminology in some ways to try to articulate that same kind of feeling, if all that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Absolutely makes sense. And I had an interesting thing happen one time, and it it it brought me to the conclusion that where do we where do our our ideas come from? Where does this perfect idea that you had no idea of before it popped in your head come from? And as I was saying about my my jewelry professor, Earl Pardon, and him being able to impart how to pull these ideas onto a piece of paper. Um there was a feeling once I got that idea of how to do that, and that's really all it was, because it was there was no big long process of uh figuring out how to do this. It was just like all of a sudden, and luckily I happened to tap into that feeling, and then I was able to repeat it. But the the experience that I had that made me really uh come to the conclusion that I did was that uh this was after about probably 10, 12 years of doing this. And there was you didn't have this enormous um input of ideas that you get if you're on your phone or your computer or whatever that is blasted at you every single day. And I think it's really much more difficult to come up with a unique idea if you are your brain is constantly seeing a zillion ideas that are not your own. And this was back in probably oh my, it was around 85, 1985. And I I always kept a sketchbook of my jewelry ideas, and I just would sketch, sketch, sketch, and you know, you don't when you sketch a lot, you don't have every idea is not a good idea, but you get to cross those out that aren't, and it might help you to go to the next one that is a good idea or a worthwhile idea to put any energy into. And I had I was very prolific with my drawings and not I couldn't turn out nearly as much as I drew, just time-wise, it wasn't possible. So I but I would have them that I could go back to and think I wanted to do that, and I had a really good idea, and I don't even remember what it uh was right now, it's in the notebook somewhere. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna remember, I'm gonna go back to that one because I really liked it a lot, and it was different, nobody else out there was doing it. And of course, the only reason I know nobody else else out there was doing it was because once a month I might get a jewelry magazine that showed ideas, you know, other people's ideas out there. That's the only input you had in those days. There wasn't a lot of you could find a book every now and then, you could find good magazines every now and then, but they were not an everyday, anytime you wanted incoming thing like the internet is. And I had that idea in my notebook. I'm thinking, I'm gonna do that. You know, I'm trying to decide when I'm gonna have the time to do this, but it was gonna be within the next several months. In the next magazine I got the next month, this guy, it was like he stole my idea out of my notebook because it was right there. And I remember looking at that, going, man, there is no possible way he could have seen my. I had no idea who he was. I didn't know him. He was another jeweler from some other part of the country. It just happened to have this picture in this magazine, and it was my exact idea. And I just remember kind of giggling to myself, thinking, these ideas must be just out there in the ether. And somehow we managed to be open enough to have them, you know, grab them out of there in our mind by with our mind as they're floating by or something, because there was no way, no possible way nobody ever saw my notebook. I didn't share my notebooks, and there was no possible way somebody else could have done the exact same idea that I had. So I really think our best ideas are um the ones that just pop in and go, oh, that's a great idea, and you just start exploring that. I think these there is a um a level that a level of vibration where these things come out of. You know, once you get that basic idea, then you can put your own spin on it and you can develop it and you can do variations of it and all that kind of thing. And that's much more um hands-on and you know, paper to pencil kind of thing, than that initial idea, that initial that initial idea.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Yeah, well, you know, uh something it's I I think uh I I kind of put that concept um of you know vibration and ether and ideas and stuff like that in spirituality, right? Um and um uh oh I'm gonna be a little bit um vulnerable here for a second. Um when my daughter was going through her heart transplant um um experience and everything, um, it wasn't just a journey that she was going through, it was a journey through that all of us were going through. Um and we are we're religious, um, we're you know, we're Christian and everything. And um I can remember uh I can remember being so scared um that she would die and just everything, like pleading, begging the like the universe, God, whatever, you know, uh to like make this thing work, right? And to give me what like my heart wanted just one thing, and it was like to have another day with my kid. And um and uh we were we've been so blessed that she had had had a heart transplant, that she's gotten through everything, and then she's you know, she's in the other room right now, and she's doing schoolwork stuff, and we'll watch videos and you know, you know, movies and stuff like that, and we'll listen to music and stuff, and it's been a pleasure to have her um around. Like my life is completely different having her in my life. But on the opposite side of that experience, um my stepson, um, right before Evelyn got out of the hospital, uh, died in a motorcycle accident. And I've really struggled over the years um trying to understand why that on one side of this coin, Evelyn is you know doing well and she and we've just it's just been an an uh it you it's a it's it's unignorable the miracle that is her just walking around. Because if you would have seen it from my eyes or the doctor's eyes, she's just a walking living miracle. Um but then I also juxtaposed that with losing um losing Christian and the devastation that's it's caused in our lives. It's like this yin and yang of life and suffering and you know, birth and loss and all this stuff. And I think um there's the tr the traditional Christian worldview of things uh doesn't really explain that well enough. And so I've delved a little bit more into um mindfulness and you know, some of the stuff that um is more widely embraced with um with you know, I guess Hindu spirituality or Buddhism or whatever. And um what I've thought about a lot is that like us as like celestial beings, us as spiritual beings, um we we feel things in the in in the tangible plane of what we manipulate in our bodies and everything. And I know it gets a little kooky, right? But I think you'll show understand this. Um but it's like we we we have our experiences, we have our life, and you it's birth to grave, right? But then there's the what's after that. And I've spent a lot of time in the what's after that because I've I've had this living experience of like miraculous like uh regeneration and everything with Evelyn. And then I've also felt this loss with Christian. And at the same time, I have the elation of life, I also have the um tragedy of death. And I wonder like what his experience is now, right? Because I don't think that we're just we just die and it's lights off and we don't well, you know, we don't do anything, right? I mean, both from a religious perspective, but then also I I feel something that's different um than just lights off and you know, Christians no longer there, doesn't exist in some way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

And I I I think that, you know, we're like as human beings or whatever, we are a filter for electricity and energy, right? That we experience it in this focal plane, but there's really like, you know, dimensionality and everything beyond that that we just don't understand. And I think about that too with ideas and with feelings and with putting out good vibes or karma or whatever. You know, everybody has these different terms and and words to try to describe it the same way as that we're trying to describe these things in knives in this medium. I think that we also extend out and are trying to understand that in life. And so um I I've had lots of ideas that um it's so odd. It's so odd that somebody else would be picking up on those same things. Um, and I guess that's where some people are like, you know, there's no original thought. But I don't really know if that's um that's I think there's just thought. I think there's just things that exist out there, right? And it's it's up to us to take that thing and somehow hold it and to manipulate it and to look at how we see it, and then that objective lens bring it to existence in in our own way, because there's the difference between you and me is is um is not that we're both human, uh it is that the constant is that we live in a universe that is pretty um pretty uh predictable. And I I say that in a weird way because it's not, it's like chaos, right? But what what what makes I I think what makes you and I different is that we can take the same energy that we live in and manipulate it in a completely different way because your spirit's different than my spirit, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 57:27

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Um this whole topic is something that has I've been very, very interested in since I was a late teenager, early 20s. Um what we can do with our mind and what does all of it all mean and all the you know, the reason and why and all of that. Um I'm trying to formulate the thought here because a lot of these when I when you get into this topic, there's a lot of limitation in words.

SPEAKER_00 58:16

No, I get and I totally get you.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Yeah. Um my thoughts are racing here, just I mean, you don't have to include this. My thoughts are starting to race here because it is I love this as a topic. And there are is so much involved with it. Um I'm just trying to find a place to start.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

Well, uh isn't it cool to just be able to experience that and to be in a medium where um you can be passionate about this kind of I idea? Like I I I like actually talking about stuff like this because it is like that undiscovered and unexplored um region of human experience that um there's very few that really are kind of interested in delving in it.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it's and yet it's our essence.

SPEAKER_00 59:31

Funnily enough, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

Yeah. Um I got interested in it uh because I I was interested in in what our minds could do. You know, like the idea of miracles and things like that. And I I was just interested, and I I remember one of the first books I read was this just a little paperback book on self-hypnosis, and that fascinated me. And I had um and I I remember in there it had talked about something about relieving pain. Like if you had a pain, you could control it with your mind, and I it was just that was such a novel idea, and I loved that whole whole idea that you could do that, that you had that kind of control, that you could do that. And I had a chance to try it out not long after I read about it. I had been hiking and hurt my knee, just long story short, hurt my knee, and got back to the house and my knee was all swelled up, it was red, and it was very, very painful. And I was as I continue to be, I was always reluctant to go to the doctor for stuff. It just seemed like you know, waste of time, and I don't really want to do that. So I remember it was hurting bad enough that I was actually thinking, hmm, I might need to go to the emergency room. And I thought, well, I'm gonna just my ex-husband and I were watching TV and I thought I were watching a movie and I thought to myself, well, I'm just gonna try to do that thing I read about in the book till the end of the movie, and then if it's still as bad as it is now, I'll think about going to the hospital for it. And by the time the perfect thing of being in that um trance type state that happens when you're watching movies and uh television and things like that, very suggestible state. Um I did what the book had said, and by the time the movie was done, the swelling had gone down and the pain was gone. And this just blew me away. I was just uh in amazement because it was definitely hurt before that, there was definitely a problem, and yet it was gone completely, and I was just flabbergasted by that, and I thought, well, I'll see how it is in the morning. And it was gone. There was no residual, no paint, no nothing. And I had jammed, I had come down off of a ledge into a pile of leaves, and I didn't realize there was a rock small boulder thing there, and it jammed my knee up into my upper leg there, and it it was just a nasty thing to have done to it. And I I was just so amazed that this thing had proven itself to me to be what I had read about worked. So I started that's what really started me off into looking into what the power of our minds are and what how that works and what that can do, and that led me to working with it um an old woman who was a hands-on healer, very skillful at it, and very deliberate at it, understood how to manipulate the vibrations of things and work within that framework and everything. And that was um it's been a recurring interest for me my whole life. I've I've dealt into it. And the the things I've learned have been pretty amazing in a lot of in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:32

Yeah, well, uh something that something that I'm uh currently uh not looking into, but um like uh testing out is this these concepts of like earthing or grounding, right? Um and it it makes I I guess like it makes a lot of sense to me because you know, like science science kind of understands from an objective lens or or uh tries to explain things that happen naturally that um that uh I don't know, that like they're like phenomena or whatever, right? And to do it in a repeatable way so that way we understand what the underlying mechanisms are. Um but um I have always been a nature boy, as it were. I mean, like as it's you know, standard hillbilly um mentality of being out in in you know nature and with no no shoes on and just like you know, clicking around do like you know, all that stuff, right? Yep, and me too. And I spent and I spent like the majority of my life um just being out and connecting with nature in a way I mean I used to go you know fishing, um I'd go out you know walking and hiking everywhere and stuff like that. And um, and I would say like in my in my early 30s, um it was like after Evelyn was born, I pretty much removed myself from nature uh because the requirement was, you know, you're gonna you're gonna be in the hospital, we're gonna do these things, you have a child to nurture and everything. And I think that that's where a lot of like my malady started. Um, you know, I mean, I've had type one diabetes for forever, um, but I've noticed, yeah, I've I mean I've had it since I was 16. And uh, you know, I I just noticed that I started to feel old. Um, I like my my body hurt more. I like it was harder to recover from being sick. Um, I've just felt sick. And there's you know, some of the science around grounding is that, well, you know, you know, we're we're evolved or whatever to um be part of nature and to benefit symbiotically from um its energy, right? And like you cut yourself off from that and you disconnect from that um uh you know earth. Synergy or whatever, and you know, there's there's m there's sickness and other things that occur because of that inflammation and whatnot. And so this kind of idea of grounding yourself and balancing out ions and whatnot um is interesting to me. And it's um I can't really say that it's like I've noticed a humongous difference. Um it's not like miraculous like some people who have experienced, but um this the science behind it makes a lot of sense, and there's a lot of published studies now about it the same way as like acupuncture used to be kind of kooky, um, but now everybody's like, oh yeah, there's like there's you know energy meridians and other things like that that you uh can tap into and whatnot, and our body just channels all that. Like, okay. Like I I I don't think it's as weird as some people might think, but like nobody nobody uh looks at stuff like that oddly when you're just out, you know, you know, uh walking on the beach or you know, putting your feet feet in the grass or whatever. They're like, oh yeah, you're just connecting with nature. You're just like, you know, enjoying the outdoors. But then when you start like trying to talk about the mechanics behind it, that's where it gets a little bit, you know, pseudosciencey or conspiratorial. And I I'm just uh I have an op more open mind, I think, than than some, uh, that there's there's a whole lot of things that we just do not understand about the human condition. Well, and about the condition of the universe. And I'm a little bit more willing to delve um delve into that, and I find it fascinating. Like the more I think, like that I learn about it, the more I think about it, the the less I really think I understand about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

Isn't that true? There is there's so much that we don't know about how we interact with um with the earth, with the unseen around us. I get tongue-tied about this. Um of the things my mom also did for us was make sure we had a lot of out in nature experiences. It wasn't a deliberate, like, okay, girls, we're going out to do this. It was just part of our lives. It was playing in the woods, it was going and riding our old horse. You know, it was we had a camp on Lake George in upstate New York, which is a gorgeous lake, and swimming from the time I was 18 months old, and being out there in that. And there's a we're never taught to recognize what the for want of a better word, the vibration of being in nature and in the elements and of those things does to rejuvenate us and add to our experience level of recognizing those feelings that go along with doing those things, and they're there for for a reason. When I I look to nature frequently because I think that if I can look at something in nature that I'm confused about in humans, you know, how does that animal interact with that animal? What do they do when they're hurt, or what do they need to eat when they're ill, or whatever. Um I find a a very strong correlation between how would nature handle this?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:59

As opposed to why are people doing this?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:05

As a response to that, you know. Um but I realize a lot of you know, most people do not um observe these things. You know, and I spend a lot of time observing and and looking at how is what is going on there? What is how does that work? Why did I just have that experience in that way and how did that happen and how did it work and what was involved with it? And it doesn't, but I I have enough um information and experience in the at this point that I my ability to think broadly is a something that I've learned to do over these decades of exploring different areas of information that may not be what normal people would think to do. And it the expanse of what we don't know and what we're taught not to accept is really kind of mind-boggling.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:22

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if we were back a few hundred years, I would have already been burned at the stake, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

Oh, you yeah, you too.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

I think you you we would both be on the on the on the uh the burn. Oh yeah. But um you know, um in like I I think it makes total sense. Like I don't know, it's like to for me, it's just like I can vibe off of somebody who under like who thinks about those types of things. Um But I think um, like I I've looked, I I think one of the um the things in your knife craft um and expression that really like has popped out to me, and I I kind of want to explore this thought process or you know, at least talk a little bit about it, um, is um some of your knives, uh it's specifically the meltdown series, um, really uh it speaks to me in a way that um I just love it. Like I can't tell you is how infatuated I am with the thing that you've done here, right? But I've thought about this like for many years. And I what I um what I love about what you've done, and just kind of I'll let you explain your thought process, but what I the way that I interpret it is I've always really loved the Art Deco and Nouveau periods of art because um there's there's something that's happened in that era of um artistry where you take something that is an element of nature or an uh just an element and you break down some of the um some of the other noise around it, and you focus just on a nuance or a single line of thought, and and then you accentuate that. So that the artistic constraint you put on yourself is that um I want to focus on something that is stationary but looks like it flows. And in like your your Midnight Sunrise or any of these other um meltdown knives that uh that I've seen you make, to me, it looks like it has a a flow or a movement to it that even though it's a stationary thing, you could sit on a counter, it looks like it's constantly moving. And I I I just kind of love that interpretation um of what I see in your knives.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:06

Thank you for telling me that, because that really is um the essence of what I'm going for. A design needs to have a flow to it, whether it's of a more geometric idea or whether it's uh a really organic idea like the the meltdowns. Um I have a very simple design aesthetic. And uh there's not a big long explanation about it. I design with two things in mind, and that those two things are beauty and magic. And I want those two things in my work. Um I mean, I I feel very strongly about that because I think that you put those things out in the world, and it can only be a good thing. And it's having come from an art school background where it's all about the concept, and there's a very wordy, wordy, wordy dissertation about where your ideas come from, that I just absolutely giggle inside over because it's a lot of talk about nothing mostly uh boil it down to just this. This is what I'm doing, beauty and magic. And people feel that if you can click into the essence of those two things, that's what that's what's happening. And I love I love the meltdowns, they're difficult to make. There's there's nothing easy uh about getting that flowing effortless look. You know, you want it to look like it just happened that way, and it that's not what's going on at all. There's a lot of angst in the process and terror sometimes because you you can't control all of that. Um but I think my most successful pieces are you can feel something about it, and there's you know, the the the it factor is what any artist has in the most successful pieces, and that's kind of an indefinable thing, but it people recognize it when they look at it. There it emits a feeling within them, and you I think that's what all artists are striving to create. And you do you can't do it 100% of the time. I don't know that it's possible to do it 100% of the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:00

Yeah. Well, um oddly enough, like um my wife and I have been watching this uh show called Parks and Wreck. Um uh and like sometimes like in in life, like we we have a lot of stuff going on, and so one of our rituals is just to like you know sit down, to veg out, to laugh at some something that we find funny or engaging in some way. And Parks and Rec is just kind of like um it's brainless in some ways, but it's also um uh like again, esoteric in others, because we kind of talk about concepts and and whatnot. And there's this one episode where the the the uh uh the main character on here, uh she spends all this time trying to like revive the Parks and Rec team because they're doing budget cuts. Um and um they do this like fall festival, and everything has to be like on point. They get uh they don't have any budget, so they get everybody in the community to donate things. And it's all this like it's many, it's quite a few episodes of like the chaos to get this to a point, and it goes off without a hitch, and then everybody loves it. Then they she saves the parks department from uh being cut out in in the budget because the the deal was is that we'll do this for free and we'll do it like like very, very low cost. But if it's successful, um you know you keep the parks department around, but if you don't, then um then you can just wax our entire our entire team as part of the budget constraints. The thing that's interesting about it was not just was not necessarily the episodes, episodes leading up into this like fall festival and it going well, but the next episode is everybody says, Oh, that was a really great idea. What's the next one? Right? And um, and that episode, she's basically um like, I I don't have any ideas. Like, I don't have any ideas. And so they go to this little camping retreat and they they try to like you know get everybody to brainstorm ideas because they think that she has like an entire Rolodex of ideas, and she's she's like blank. She used like that was her good idea. And uh Ron Swanson's character is uh he he says, you know, uh Leslie, you need to just sleep. Like take a break, like disconnect from everything, and just give yourself time to rest. And she sleeps and then she wakes up the next day and and she's like writing down ideas. It's like her mind is like racing again. Like she's she is that thing that everybody uh thought she was in the ideas person and having just like a bunch of things that she can spitball. And it it's weird because you know, as you're talking about this like brainless activity of watching television or watching shows and wasting time, I really thought a lot about that as you know, you you don't always culminate the greatest ideas. Like sometimes you're just grasping after um after stardust, and sometimes you can capture it and you can condense it and put it into put it into the world in a different way. But that also comes with a certain amount of fatigue. And sometimes you just have to let your base self rest and understand that your next idea is something that happens organically when you kind of calm everything down, like you calm down the vibrations, the last idea, and move on to the silence that happens in the interim of between idea and idea, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:31

Yeah, it does. No, that's very true. And it's not like an on-demand thing that happens, it's like, oh, just because I need to come up with a good idea right now doesn't mean it's gonna come. And the more pressure I put on myself to have that is likely to push it further away. Um in my design process, if I sit down to design, if I'm just going to design, it's better to have some parameters than to have no parameters. Because the the field of ideas is just too big if you don't have some way to corral something to come in, give it a little pathway to go down. But I will if I'm gonna sit down, if I don't have something that just popped in my head that I'm putting down on paper, if I'm just gonna sit down and say, okay, I'm gonna design something new, I'm gonna have an idea to start with. I may have a basic sketch of a profile and just start there. I will generally, though, have an idea that has come into my brain somehow, somewhere, that I just need to put down on paper. In the act of putting it down on paper, and I I absolutely cannot design within a computer program, it's too slow for me. I need that pencil on paper and do it fast because I don't do any detail work at that time. It's all about just letting it flow out of me and onto the paper. Um, and the computer is just too slow. Having to use a tool like that is just it breaks up the thoughts too much to be able to allow for where that thing comes out of the ether and that good idea sh shows itself. So I'll do a bunch of those ideas and I'll do them really fast. Really fast. Don't try to develop any of them, just get them out there, do them over and over again, just vary them as m little or as much as comes through at the time, and after I get a bunch of them down there, then I'll go back and look and see if any of them are worth looking at again. And sometimes there's none that work, and it it's not ever a waste of time to have nothing come out. It's just you got that stuff out, okay. Now you don't have that in there clogging stuff up anymore. You just do it again. Or maybe you go for a walk or you go do something else for a while and then you come back and you you try it again. And there's a I mean, the word that comes keeps coming to mind is serendipity. There's these serendipitous things that happen during this process where something comes out just you know, some way that you use the pencil line that maybe wasn't even part of the deliberate thing you were putting down there, might trigger that idea that comes in. And then once you have that basic idea, then you can go back and start playing with how to pull pull it out in a pleasing way so that the whole overall effect of the piece works from the tip to the tail to the inside to the backside to the front side. Top down everything. Um and that's that's the basic process. It's not um it's not a rigid thing at all. What which is an entirely different process than making a pattern. Which is all about precision.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:46

Yeah. Well, um I have a lot of thoughts around that. Um, but like it in some ways, I like I I think with somebody who has as much knowledge and as much experience in kind of tapping into this thing, um I'm I'm interested in in always like the juxtaposition b between where I'm at and where my guest is at and and where I'm at and where you personally are at. Uh that's why I love this conversation. Because um I am not a great sketcher. Um I am not a great drawer. I don't draft things real well. I'm like uh I mean, Evelyn's probably just a like a better artist than I am when it comes to drawing stuff. I just like I can't tell you, I just did not spend a lot of time doing it, although I'm very fascinated with it. Um and so in some ways, I've gone more towards the digital side of augmentation and whatnot, um, you know, using CAD software or things to uh build out to like two-dimensionality of uh certain ideas. But I've always felt that as soon as I start to try to cultivate an idea, it dies on the vine because um, like you mentioned about um not not detailing out or developing that idea. It seems like uh all these like kind of ideas, when you focus too much on one thing and you try to develop it out, then you realize, uh like I don't know if I like it. And you spend like like nine million years, it seems, trying to follow an uh a path that doesn't really pan out very well. And right I I've wondered sometimes if I'm just conditioning myself to hate riffing, right? Like because you know, like that that is the idea. You know, like us talking here, like man, we're riffing on so many different ideas, and I love this because it's dynamic, and we just so happy to be recording it, right? But um, we can talk about ideas as they come to fruition. And if for some reason we don't like the content, I can just say, meh, you know, I'm just gonna delete this out of the podcast. Um, I don't really know if it has a lot of merit. But it's like I don't do that everywhere. Like I'm I'm very regimented in certain areas of my life, and other areas I feel very comfortable. And it's uh it's like musicians, you know, and you're going in a jam session, you're just like, you know, you're riffing off the different ideas and themes and whatnot, and you just kind of develop this thing. To me, that's always where I want to exist, but sometimes I don't know if I allow myself to do that so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:37

I understand exactly what you're saying, I think. Yes. Um one of the mistakes. What you just said when you said I'm not a good drawer, I I am not a good sketcher. Um that is something that I think a lot of people do, and it inhibits the flow of the ideas. And the reason I say that is my sketches are hideous. They are no nothing. All they are, all my when I say sketch, I mean all it is is is a visual shorthand so my brain can remember that idea. There is nothing pretty about it. I am not in the least trying to make anything that anybody else would recognize. I am just letting it flow out there fast and quick so that when I look at it next time I'll go, oh yeah, I remember that. And then I can go back and look at it further if it has any merit to do that with it. And I don't worry about what it looks like. I mean I don't care if anybody ever sees it or not. It doesn't bother me if people want to look at them but that's the part where I see a lot of people that really do feel that they lack the skill to do it. And I would have to disagree with them because it's not about the skill of what that thing looks like. All you're doing is putting a visual shorthand down so that your brain can recognize the idea later when you go on and go back and look at it and play with it more. And it's a very free thing. And I think if you can approach it from that standpoint um it can be and that's why I can't do it on the on the computer because the ideas are so fast that I can't with my fingers on the computer can't go from tool to tool fast enough for it to be a free flowing process for me. Whereas with a paper and a pencil I can do that. I mean I could do it on an iPad too but I really like that tactility of a pencil on a paper.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:04

Yeah for sure to work from and again I mean maybe that's a grounding thing well yeah um that just popped in I yeah I feel stupid certain ideas like you you like you voice them or whatever and as like whether you're talking to a person or just speaking them into existence and then you kind of like you you can mold them over. I don't know why I do those things like I mean limit myself uh by my self-consciousness right and it's not even my you know what's crazy about it is I I can't say that I'm being self-conscious. The things that keep me from expressing myself are not my own consciousness. It's the it's the perception that other people and their consciousness affects me. Right. Right. Like like who like you're right like who cares if a line is perfect? Like m nobody might ever see it. Just the same way as they don't know what's going on in my mind nobody is is there to judge and to validate or to condemn um things that I experience or ideas that I have or whatever. And I I think that you know as we kind of talk about the whole interconnectedness the internet social media um uh the societal um like demands of things um I think that it really neuters us because we're way too concerned about everybody else that doesn't give a you know a shit about us and not enough about the things that we personally can do that make us feel like we are connected and that we are our ideas and things like that are valid. And that's something that's a personal growth thing that I really I I feel that I need to work on more because I I am constantly neutering myself because of the perception that somebody else needs to care about it when it really should just be me caring about that thing and exploring it and that's where I can find my own personal joy and um introspection that's that's very profound and very valuable to express that um and it's I think that's part of the I think that's the essence of the human condition is that we're trying to learn to to develop our souls without bringing it down to what other people think about us. I mean that just it doesn't even begin to express that concept but but aren't we nurtured no but um no I mean it's a good it's a good uh observation though because aren't aren't we kind of nurtured to do that right like like education is is an idea that is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator so everybody understands it right information information is that same way. It's like so we we get this idea that people that like ideas and experience has to be punched down on instead of people expecting people to try to punch up. And and I I I feel that a lot and I don't man I'm I I mean I'm just like picking up on those vibrations um I think that there's probably a a a methodology to when I feel that way to stop and say hey like am I really punching down or like on my own ideas and my own beliefs and stuff or I'm am I trying to get people to elevate to this kind of concept. But it's like when I when I see kind of like if I'm perusing stuff on social media or whatever, um I see a lot of like derivative ideas. And there's something like that I've noticed I was talking with Bruce Bump about this and he was like you know I I when he was making knives and he was selling it for like you know 50 bucks or whatever back in the day um he said that you know it was like hunting knives and stuff. And he's like well I looked around and everybody else was making hunting knives and I I wanted to do something different. You know like what it's boring to be like everybody else. And he started kind of this process of nurturing his own aesthetic and his own ideas. And you have him now at the you know latter end of his life having developed ideas and concepts out that are very clearly his and there's things that nobody else was willing to touch like the these you know these cut and shoots or um or um you know uh dual threat knives that he calls them they're they've very seldom been done. And I would say that in in our modern era he had taken that to a just a different plane um than everybody was used to. Absolutely and you know and I think about that like I I don't I guess maybe it's like it kind of in that thought you know as I talk about those things that I um do you know like uh when you when you have thoughts or you get too deep or esoteric about things you wonder if you're just looking for complexity in an area where it shouldn't like necessarily exist. Right? Like you're trying to you're trying to be deep but does it really need to be deep? And that's kind of the vacillation between you know do I think too much about things or do I not think enough about things and I it's I guess it's the manic nature of uh self-expression and whatnot that I've I don't have the life experience and maturity I guess to just tell myself to calm down and take a breath.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:06

So I'm very neurotic there's a fine line a very fine line sometimes. Yeah. Um I my observation is that everything boiled down is very simple. That doesn't mean it's easy but it's the simple um taking everything down to its basics it's it is simple which is very hard to find a lot of times within your own brain when you're thinking um we want to we get we've been given so much distraction that makes everything feel complicated in a lot of ways so we're not used to looking for the simplicity that's there and it it can be it can be paralyzing if you're when you're when not if I we all do it that I can see um you're overthinking and and complicating it more than its essence is it's a it's a difficult thing and we have to work we uh we have to work around our own um our own roadblocks and stuff I mean just for me to come on this on your podcast today is not it's not in my nature to feel comfortable doing this at all and I would uh you know understanding that this is a a good thing to do because and I'm having a blast and I'm enjoying our conversation immensely and I'm so glad that I've done this but the the dread and the anxiety that I have to overcome to do something like this makes me partly understand that you know that's why it's good for you to do it to exercise that part of myself that says I see that this is a really good thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:35

So I'm going to do it in spite of how I feel yeah it's why they call it something outside of your comfort zone right exactly exactly and I have to you know I I understand that my thoughts control my feelings not vice versa that's a hard one piece of knowledge there and it's not always fun to know that that my thoughts control my feelings not vice versa puts a great deal of responsibility on on yourself once you know that it's so annoying sometimes yeah well and um yeah as I think about that you know there's there's lots of like life anecdotes and things like that that um you know people tell you you have to you have to um I I've always been been told that like the way that you think about things or your mentality or your um your attitude is what is what determines like your success or your failure or how you interpret a situation right and um that it seems to be like an an old anecdote to life where um you know you have to have the right attitude and that that really does change it because like we're as emotional beings and everything we can get very tied up in like the way that we feel but if we put it in the right perspective or our perception of things is a little bit um different that we can make um uh lemonade out of lemons, right? Like you know like all these little like sayings and stuff that tell us, you know, hey like you're right like your thoughts do um do dictate. And um I like something that we we were like touched on is like how you know complexity and things like that exist. And if you break down things to you know very very simplistic ideas or concepts that if you can include a few of those in like design principles and knives or you know any medium that you're choosing, then you can build and riff upon that to make something whole out of individual parts, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:01

Something that I think about like um when I look at your work um and I know that you and Van had collaborated uh collaborated on that ice and fire uh folding dagger like for instance when I look at that thing there is so much to it right um yet I I can trust based on the feeling that it evokes that there is some some level of simplicity that the the it like the thing that I'm looking at is the sum of of its parts. And um I think that is a little bit different experience than when you get really confused with like simple ideas that are overcomplicated versus versus um complex ideas that are simplified in order for us to be able to understand it. And I I think that that's like our light like when I look at something like things like this, um I'm reminded that this is emblematical of the human condition where you're taking a lot of complex ideas and condensing them down into a medium that is tangible but it I can experience it. Like I look at the uh the order of things I look at the uh the flow of things I look at the different um the different textures I look at the different light um um you know like jewels and things that uh that refract light uh differently um I look at um you know all of these things and it it causes me to think more about um the complexity in simplicity it's like you do you look at um one galaxy or do you look at the entire universe of galaxies or do you zoom in into that galaxy and then find a planet you know do you zoom down even further and look at a single grain of sand on a beach and th those things I think are authentic. They're authentic complexity because you're trying to evoke simplicity and understandability out of complex things versus again just being contrary because it's it's easier to conflagrate um complexity out of things that really should be simple yes yeah um in terms of designing if something the basic is is a good design but the basics of it are usually very simple and then it's the details that are added onto that create a lot of interest um and evoke the feeling of whatever your it is that you're trying to say or um say and the details need to be deliberate um some uh people sometimes make the mistake of throwing too many things into the idea uh and not understanding not really understanding why they're doing it they just feel like that might be a good idea uh but the details the deliberateness of like when I do the the the dots on the spines of the meltdowns that I do each one of those is very specifically placed and the size of each one of those is different.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:56

Visually you'll never look at know that if you're looking at it just in a picture quickly because it just doesn't really register but you would notice it if they were all exactly the same size. It something would seem too rigid about the idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:14

So it's taking the tiny little detail and making it it in itself simple that adds to the complexity and the feeling of the whole does that make sense oh yeah absolutely and the details are fun the details are fun they're they're like the simple part is the hard part getting that basic simple is the hard part then you can go and play with the with all the other stuff and even in the play there is deliberation and all of that but that's that's the that's where the real fun part starts yeah well and um you know something that I I think about is uh when I look at your work I really just it it baffles me on how you got to a certain place uh technically right like some of the so like the the green collage uh a part of your art deco series yeah I love that one yeah it's so it's it's super rad but uh we when when I look at the lock bar there's a lot of things that are going on here but are those uh are those emeralds or what stones are those on the okay so you so you have emeralds that are set on the spine of the of the lock bar and then you have um emeralds that are um that are I don't know what you call that in jewelry's terms but uh they're uh uh they're burnished over into those uh um pockets or uh whatever I I forget what cabochons and in bezel settings yeah yeah bezel settings that's it sorry um yeah so you have like you you have them you have them bezel set you have um you have them uh set on the spine and uh all of that is like to to do that one thing um the that one thing that you know it or it looks like one thing but it's really like many many things within it like it's it's a it's a it's a technical feat because I I think that you know to to conceptualize that that thing is a probably a pretty cool thing to do is one thing. To actually articulate that mechanically is a completely different thing because of how many different elements it has yeah do do you think like um do you think that your experience and your knowledge set inside of uh like jewelry making and the mechanics of how to do that stuff has influenced some of your decisions on how far you can reach out into like the mechanical side of thing in order to express ideas yes it had um having that additional vocabulary um technical vocabulary is really just made a huge difference for what I'm able to express I don't want like when I'm designing with the gemstones and stuff I don't ever add a gemstone but just to add more gemstones and add more value in a piece that way that's that's not it everything has a purpose involved with it in terms of the overall design um you don't notice it so much you don't notice that they're how do I want to put this you hopefully what I'm doing is making the piece so cohesive throughout itself that you don't say oh my god look at all those gemstones that's not what I want you to do I don't want people to just focus on that I love gemstones they're beautiful I love that I can add this color that way I I just really love that um but I don't want it to be like oh good look at this giant diamond here because that's what's important that because that isn't what's important to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:51

But having the technical skill to be able to put all those little pieces of color juxtaposed next to like the color of gold or something is just just something I'm so happy that I know how to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:08

Because it will it gives me the ability to add this other dimension that is visually interesting. And you it's something you just don't you don't I think it's also surprising. And I think that's part of the appeal that people are can be like surprised that this is on a knife and yet it works. It's on a functional tool but it it it works. I mean the design works and you know the tool works too. Obviously that is a the bottom line is it has to function. But um having the ability and then the understanding of how to to set those and do it in an efficient manner. Is just a a joyous experience for me. I like having that skill and I have to say I've just noticed this over the last couple of years that I've been doing this a long time and I I'm finally feeling like I know what I'm doing if that makes any sense. I finally feel confident. I'm not as um as scared in part of the processes because some of the stuff that that I'm doing is very tricky in terms of you know it's very easy to break a stone it's very easy to scratch this material. It's very easy to melt this gold in a way I don't want it to have happen. And I I am finally and you I mean I've been doing this let's see I took my first jewelry class in 1976. I've been doing this a long time but to finally feel that my skills I'm at a level where I'm I feel comfortable and fluid and happy with the end result in a way that I haven't done before. And it's um I'm surprised by that because I thought I was comfortable before but I wasn't from this perspective from this vantage point I can look back and say that now.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:36

Yeah well I mean four 48 years of chasing an idea right and I mean you know yeah there's lots of i there's lots of ideas there's lots of things that you've expressed but really if if we condense down your your life's work into into a few basic concepts right um that idea that you're like uh evoking like a magical experience and everything really is at the root of all of these things that you've culminated over those 48 years of of artistry, right? And um I think about like what when you were mentioning about setting stones and using different um embellishments and whatnot, I'm reminded of cooking. Because you know when you learn how to cook you realize that if you put too much salt in what in something it's going to ruin the batch. Like exactly yeah if you if like seasonings should be a thing to accentuate something that is already good by itself.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:42

Exactly that's a really good analogy. I've never thought of that before but that's really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:47

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah well just riffin but um but you know but I mean but you have to know that I mean you have to spoil a few batches of soup in order to realize that if you put too much salt in it you're gonna ruin it. But then what I'm also interested in is um in in sophisticated cooking, you know, you have these things that I don't know like if I think about gumbo, right? Gumbo is this thing that's like you know just a pot of a bunch of different things that you mix together and you season it right and it has different textures and whatnot and it's really appealing. But then you pull in that sassafras root and it provides a just a different flavor profile that makes things pop in an even different way. And you can do the same thing with like certain flavors or seasonings and like you know like curries and something or something that is would would seem diametrically opposed to what it is that you're doing, but it just somehow works because I don't know you know how to use seasonings and you play with it in order to be able to figure out a little dash of this and a little something something as a secret sauce is kind of what makes it work even though other people just really aren't willing to experience seasoning um things.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:05

Right. Right there's a subtlety that um has to be learned or by experience you have to do it to have the experience to know what works and that's um that's a learned thing and it's a the process of learning it is what's so much fun. I love to learn I like I love to learn computer programs. I love to learn new technical skills I love to learn and that's one thing about learning that I had to figure out I took a little time to figure out was that I would get so excited during the initial learning process that I would forget to savor that experience of of the that that happens during that first part of learning when you're just learning this new technique or this or that and I would rush through to see to get to the end because I wanted to see it done. Not because I wanted it over with just I wanted to see the final product really really just too much that I would forget to stop and savor that experience as I was going through it because you can't get that first part back again. You know the next parts build on that but that first part is just magical and it the energy that you get from that excitement and that um motivation of oh I can't wait to to work on this again today because I want to feel how that feels to learn that thing to know how to do that. And and that's such an exciting part of the process um and I I like to learn I love to learn new techniques. I like to learn to to figure out a new way to do this thing that I want to accomplish over here if I have to figure out a new way to fuse this thing or to attach this thing or whatever. I just love that part of the process there's a um there's a vibration to that that I just love to feel when that happens yeah and that's what keeps going forward to keep making new ideas because it's so fun to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:33

Yeah well and uh um different stages of life right because I'm so 30 I'll be 37 this year and you know having kids and doing things in life I've realized that the first the first 37 years of my life has been squandering it. Because you know I'm at a I'm at a a a point now in my life where I realized that what I was doing was marginalizing experience and time for the sake of what could come next right you know it's like you know everything like you're oh I'm gonna be a teenager or I'm gonna be a certain age and you're like okay well I'm almost something else right and and how often do we do we do that um somewhat culturally but I think just as humans where the thing that is next is new and exciting versus the thing that we're experiencing right now, which is sometimes doldrum. And I've spent a long time you know looking for where the stone is going to skip next instead of just enjoying the process of tossing it. And I think that that that is a life maturity thing where I mean 48 years you've spent c cultivating these ideas and whatnot and you've been doing it longer than I've been alive. Right? And well and what I think about with that is um there was a point in time you know growing up and whatnot that I was not concerned about like anything that I'm concerned about now. Like I don't even recognize like 10-year-old me. I don't even I don't recognize 18-year-old me. Like my my priorities have shifted so much um that I don't even identify with that person anymore. And I really in some ways I wish I could go back and tell that that person to like slow down and absorb more of that experience because so much time is spent just rushing through it. And there's a lot of times in knives where I do the same thing like it's the the next show or it's you know trying to uh like I'm not even considering the process the artistic process of making a knife I'm concerned about how I'm cultivating things so that way when I show it to everybody I can sell it. Um and it and I'm doing such a disservice to myself uh to not just be in the in that the the sunlight you know just to enjoy the rays of the energy instead of like okay well you know let it be somebody else's thing or let me get a little bit of money for it or whatever. And um I think about that a lot. Like I've taken a little bit of time away from like the hustle and bustle of knives uh to really just try to uh spree center myself and think about why it is that I'm actually doing this stuff. Because I got into knives not because I was ever planning on making money um at it, but then somehow it turned into pomp and circumstance and selling them so that way I can support the habit. And I've really become um like a analogous to a drug addict um in in making a knife to sell a knife so that way I can buy the stuff to make another knife to sell it. And then it's a vicious cycle versus me just stepping back and being more mature about it and saying, hey let's slow this down a little bit. Let's like let's southern draw it you know let's uh let's just enjoy the experience and and really try to get as much out of it as we can um and I think that's kind of where I've come to so far in my life is that I really need to slow down and smell the roses uh which is another weird um life anecdote that you know you don't really realize until you're mature enough to realize it but um that like the um some of the design concepts that we're talking about is actually a a larger question mark that I've had around design principles uh that I've never really been satisfied with like what answers I've come up with. So I I mean I appreciate you uh talking about those things because I definitely think that um you know when when I can break those those elements down and you know start with simplicity and basic ideas um understand what I'm trying to evoke with what I'm doing and then you know season things according to my experience or punch up on like learning other things on how to tactically or you know tactically do things is is very beneficial. But you know like there's there's some things that I see out of your work like um I know that uh Jim Schmidt uh would do these goblin um folders and whatnot and I've seen uh some examples from Steve Schwarzer too but um there's an element to that design that is really um that it's pure juxtaposition to me. Like yeah you have a knife here but there's something that comes out of um taking natural materials and accentuating them in a way that you see something that wasn't there before and maybe we just didn't see it. It's like a it's like a big Roarshock um blot or whatever. Right? Yeah do you do you do a um a lot of the of the goblin style of uh of folders or kind of what has been your experience with that um with that kind of medium and and working within uh making them I've I've actually only done one at this point and the one that I did was um for a collector who was really good friends with Jim and had picked out the um the handle material the antler and before Jim had died and he came to me um and asked if I would he had a little sketch of what Jim's idea was and he had asked if I would make the knife for him and it was a big knife a big old antler huge piece of Damascus for and everything and um I had not done one before and I hadn't carved before hadn't carved any face anything like that before and um I wanted to do the project because it had been gyms and I wanted to do that and I wanted and I I was very good friends with this collector too and very wonderful person.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:52

He and his wife had been my friend for a long time too and uh it was it was a really fun project. I hadn't done anything like that before so too I had this this small very rough sketch of the face that was Jim's basic idea. There was not a lot of detail to it but Larry just gave me this and said this is what I'd like you to you know this is what Jim had that's what he said and then just go do whatever you want with the rest of it and to be able to work in that way I just had a great time with it. Um I think that there's a bit of a limit with those in terms of the fact that um you know you you're because it you're you're working within a pretty specific genre of what is going to come out of it that it's um a little more specific than a lot of the ways that I like to start designing but uh it was a really fun process. I enjoyed it and it's there's a lot of little details that you can go into in a piece like that that um that it just can be really really fun and you can make up a store you can make up a story that goes along with the way you want it to make it which is also very fun. I think there's stories that can how do I want to put it there are tales to be told that add to the overall enjoyment of the piece and when you get something that is as figurative as that that has a personality and the way that it has a personality and that has a very um almost humanoid type of existence related to it I think that that that can be a really fun process.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:58

Yeah and that makes sense I mean yeah like the the the I mean you're right like a I mean telling the story or the narrative or the fantasy that um that it evokes is something that I think is um in very intriguing. For instance, you know uh Larry Fugin has produced some of these goblin knives that I it boggles my mind of how he actually does it. Yep um because all all of those are like there's there's no way um there's no way to create something the way that he has if you're not if you're not thinking in the in the wavelength that he is.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:45

Some of that stuff has just been like taken to a completely different degree than even uh uh Jim had originally done.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:53

Um and like I I look at some of his stuff because I think the first time I actually unfortunately uh the first time that I had been experienced in uh Larry's um knives like that was when uh Steve Shacklford um released his 50 Greatest Living Knife makers I think it was or you know greatest living knife makers and I saw those pictures um and I was like that is insane to me. And you know in my mind I was like coming up with like these stories like who is this person or this entity that is is in this knife um and he really like took that concept of um of these goblin folders or I don't even know like it's a just a different genre now because if you can do these things with creating sculpted um sculpted pieces like he does um he manipulates them in ways that I just never would have even thought were possible. And so what I saw your goblin knife too I mean what a great homage uh to Jim and uh y'all's relationship and whatnot for you to be able to produce that.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:05

That was I was just really honored that I was asked to do that. And I never had done them before because I you know they were Jim's thing. He really popularized them and I just like I said in the very beginning when I first started I did not want to ride off of his coattails at all in terms of designs feet you know my designs needed to be specifically different and they needed to be Delena's not Jim Schmidt's and that was really important to me so I drew a line I'm not gonna do what he does. So I never did one of those and it was I was just really honored to be asked to do that. And it was I I did have fun with it. It was it was and I have a I actually have a gorgeous atypical antler sitting down there in the shop waiting for me to want to do another one.

SPEAKER_00 2:10:06

I you know there's uh something I've been uh fascinated with and something I guess I didn't uh really really know or think about too much is uh your relationship with Van and uh you know not only the collaborations that you've done because I there was a long time that I didn't know that you guys uh were you know uh married or partners or whatever um what what's that like having that collaboration between two just like monumental artists and and expressionists in in this medium do you guys uh like I mean obviously I see the work that you guys can produce when you guys uh do collaborations and whatnot but what does that workflow look like from a day-to-day basis and ideating on certain like concepts and whatnot well it's an interesting process um we were you know both established knife makers successfully so before we ever met each other he'd been making knives since high school and I had been making knives about oh I guess eight seven eight years we were we met at a knife show and hit it off and the rest is history kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:28

And I was of course very adamant in my again if I wasn't gonna do anything like Jim I wasn't gonna do anything like they was I it's very difficult as an artist when you marry another artist particularly if they're um they also have a name for themselves that you can it can kind of diminish Each of them if if you're not careful, if if they get too uh if they mesh their styles, let's put it that way. And I that was not something I was interested in doing. The collaborations that we've done, we don't do an awful lot of them, and it's it's combining skill sets and ideas during a process, but one or the other of us usually has a basic idea of it, and that's very often his van uh comes up with uh uh some really spectacular thing, and then we confer about the more detailed parts of it. Um he's he's uh a brilliant mind, he is an artistic genius, and he is also um brought his mechanical abilities to uh figure out how to do things, and even if he has to invent new ways to do things, uh he's absolutely brilliant. And I am not always um that fun to work with because I don't like to be told what to do and or how to do things. And I mean I he had some suggestions that would have made my life a lot easier if I hadn't waited 17 years to allow myself to think maybe I'll try that kind of thing. So so collaboration is is an interesting thing on a day-to-day basis. You know, sometimes it's just like, hey, you go do that. I don't feel like working on that right now. What's it you know we're two strong personalities, and there's has to be a um a lot of give and take in the process. And I I you know, having I mean, I was single for many years before I got together with him, you know, I was well established and my own design ideas and all of that. So it's it's it's a great way to learn and grow and to learn, I mean collaborate, it's a great word, it's a it's a great concept where you two people can help each other do something. That's that's a good thing to know how to do, and it's a good thing to um it'll show you where you don't want to do some things that you might be beneficial to learn to override your initial responses to.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:47

Yeah. Well, I guess uh that's interesting in a lot of ways, because you know, I mean, we uh that's normalized inside of Hollywood because the um the nepotism in in Hollywood is you know, you you basically marry another actor or actress or whatever, right? And um, and you know, you have your own individual careers, but then somehow mesh together um for the sake of marriage and kids and whatever it is that you're doing. Um but if you think about it, there's really not a lot of um of partner-based collaboration inside of knives or even like um uh like marriages between you know artists, uh, not not like you see in a lot of other industries. Um it's usually um either in different mediums or whatever. I mean, there's very few. So I mean you have Billy Mesa Mole and his wife, um you have uh Buster Worensky and and Julie that were married, you have you and Van. There's just really not a lot of examples there where there was some level of you know collaboration or working together in some way, but in the same medium-ish. And I've always been interested in like how uh how collaboration and stuff works. Like who whose idea was it to um uh in your shop and uh studio and everything to to paint it all white?

SPEAKER_02 2:16:20

Well, the basic to paint it white was fans idea. I mean, it's it makes complete and sense because you want as much light as possible where you're working. And the older you get, the older your eyes get, the more you want you understand why that's true. And we had um the shop I had before I moved from upstate to New York to West Virginia to be with Van. Um, I lived in a little log cabin and I had one bedroom, and it was a log cabin bedroom, so it's kind of dark and stuff, and I had plenty of lights in there, but you don't realize how much those white walls in like the shop we have now just make the make it even brighter, and it's such a help to do that. But what I really love is that Van actually is the one that also came up with the idea of painting the the large equipment white and put the gold stars on there. I walked out in not this shop, but in the other shop before we moved to this house one day, and he had painted the big bandsaw white and put the gold stars all over it. And I'll tell you what, it is just so happy to walk out there and see a piece of equipment like that and not be that ugly old industrial green. It's just a happy thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:17:50

Yeah, well, and like I um there there's one thing in my shop, it's like, you know, it's uh it's a two-car garage, and it's like there's wires and stuff. Like it's all very like um basic um in the sense that uh it's kind of ugly. It just looked dirty. It's like a shed, basically, that just has a bunch of tools and stuff in it. And we've all had those. Well, yeah, it's like it's it's totally different than in my head what a dream shop looks like. But I've thought about it where um sometimes the psychology of things looking like being organized and looking clean or looking orderly or looking um a certain way, like there's visual elements to that um help with ideas and help with the general juju of you working. And um sometimes I just go out there and I'm just like depressed. I'm like, ugh, like I have to clean this thing or I have to do this, and it just reminds me of all of my failures and not so much of like let's just walk out in here and create something new, you know? And uh I've I've tried to slowly migrate my mentality to okay, I need to go out there and clean, and I need to be more like less of a slob and more regimented about tidying things up, but then I also I'm I'm I'm redoing all of the lights in there. Um I bought I bought these uh lights where I'm gonna have about 166,000 lumens um uh on this on the ceilings uh so that way I can just like flood the entire garage with light um so that way I can you know I can look at things um under uh you know intense light instead of just always kind of being in the dark and not seeing stuff appropriately.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:43

Um and it's so important. It's it makes the world a difference. It takes a lot of the strain out of it and a lot of the stress out of it if you can see what you're doing well. And like you were saying, just to clear the clutter. I mean, it is it's just so much more pleasant to have a clear place to work.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:10

Yeah, I'm reminded of another anecdote. They say like a place for everything and everything has its place.

unknown 2:20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:20:16

And I've I've I've I've been so diametrically opposed to that because I'm like, no, like you don't get to tell me how like how many times I take a shower and how like I comb my hair or whatever. Uh, you know, it's like like I I you know, I'm just like, no, I can do it, I can do it, and I can live in chaos. But my thing is, is like um chaos has its its its place, I think. Um I think that we are bombarded by chaos, but it is nice when you want to try to articulate um cohesion and peace and you know ideas that you do have a place that is clean, that it is orderly, because that's what you're doing. You're taking these little like um these little bits and pieces out of the chaos and arranging them in a new way to show what order and creation looks like out of chaos, right? So but in my shop is not there yet. Light, light is one of those things in organizing, but it's not definitely not to the place where I could paint everything white and you know have a zen garden inside of my shop.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:22

Well, this you know, our shop now it was is it was a two-car garage, cement block walls and everything when we moved in here. And Van, you know, I would I was there to help, but I had I did not put this together in my head the way he did. Um he looked at the space, figured out what we wanted, where we wanted, and how we were gonna do it. Um and he the way he works, he builds everything in his head before he touches a thing. He doesn't and he rarely even does any kind of drawing or anything. So he built the whole thing in his head before we he even started the first thing on it, and uh he solves all the problems that way and everything. I I wish I could work that way. I wish my brain did that, but it doesn't. But it's fascinating to see that he actually does that. I mean, he could go to the hardware store without a list because he knows what he's doing and he's already built it, so he just goes and he gets the stuff he needs to build it with. Fascinating way to think. Um but that's I I my like I said, my brain doesn't work that way. But uh back to the chaos thing, I had to finally admit to myself as I got older and wiser, because I used to think I worked worked well in chaos, that's what I told myself for years and years and years, and uh my my my jewelry bench would always be just like a bomb went off, and uh all the other stuff was always just stuff all over it and everything. And then I finally came to the realization that well I don't know that I do work well in chaos because I haven't ever tried not working in chaos. So let's let's see about that when when we built this sh the shop in St. Albans before we moved here, and it was really nice to have this new shop that was all clean and everything. I'm thinking, oh, look at that. Hmm, I like working this way way better than I like working in chaos. And I started really looking at myself and what my motivations were for saying I like to work in chaos, and it was really boiled down to the very annoying fact that I just really didn't want to clean up. So I left it messy all the time, and I never gave myself the opportunity to see what it was like to work in a really clean um non-chaos situation. And I really, you know, nobody I don't think enjoys those moments of self-awareness where you have to admit those things. But that was it for me. I really, I just didn't want to clean up.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:31

Yeah. Well, I think uh that's uh there's a there's a point uh when when people are uh dying, right? Um not to be too morbid, but there's a point where people are dying when when clarity becomes uh the only thing that you have left, right? Uh I see it a lot um in you know people who have cancer or other things that you know they know that the end is going to be near and they have clarity, right? And the only thing that you can be at that point is honest. Um, I mean you can definitely deny it and make it a more painful process, or you can be honest with yourself. Um how like it's difficult to be honest. It's difficult to just like sit here and to really reflect. And I don't know, like I don't know if that can happen as organically or as naturally as as it could or should if people are just always amped up and tuned into what everybody else is doing. It's kind of like one of those things where um I I really hate technology. Like I I mean I work in it, I do it, but I'm I'm really at a place where um if I could just not be exposed to it at all and just go out and you know, a few acres of property and really kind of be um buffered from it, I think that my I I would I would have a lot more peace in the things that are like the the system in of life at which I am in, right? Like right now I have no idea how to navigate this space. Like something's always happening, there's always some drama, there's always something going on online, and I'm I'm bombarded by that constantly. And it doesn't really give a lot of opportunities to just sit to shut up and listen to what is around you. That's the reason why I do like nature so much, because you um somebody once asked me, um, like, what do you like about being like out in nature? What like what entices you to be an outdoorsman? And uh the way that I described it was when when you are out and you are just existing in a space that is is not designed for you, right? You realize how small and insignificant your existence is in the grand scheme of things, but how you are intrinsically connected with it. And and most of our lives, I think, are spent um buffering us from the reality of existence. Um, you know, we we have a a regiment that we follow, we we uh we make a little nest for ourselves in our home or um in our lives and the friends we have and everything like that. And it really does kind of remove us from the brutality uh of nature. And so I've always thought about that as like um in in accepting ideas or in at least allowing myself to delve down to down in the uh the route of um Aaron, you're not always right. Like you might have a bias, but you're not right. And my hey, my wife will tell me all the time that I'm not right. So there's no ego here. Like I I just know like probably most of the time I'm wrong in some way. And if I don't, I'll talk to her and she'll find it. But um she she's she like does enable like enable me to uh to think about things and to kind of be a little petulant child of sorts, um, but then also reminds me that you know I'm not um like my my my poop still stinks and I'm still not like she loves me, but she loves me because of my flaws or in spite of them. Um and I think that that's a a a healthy way of looking at things where um uh you know you can come to the the a level of honesty with yourself and that's where real growth occurs because everything is just laid out on the table.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:54

It's it's very freeing when you can come to that point, but it's really hard to get to that point. It's um it can be so painful to go through that process, and yet when you can finally accept that, there is there's a freedom from it that lifts your soul, but it's so hard to do, and it we're so we have so many distractions now, and you know it's hard to think it's not by the design in some ways that don't think about improving yourself or self-growth or um refining your soul or anything like that. Don't don't think about that. Think about this over here. Look at your phone, look at your TV, look at your laptop, whatever. And I think that getting out in nature is one of the things that is um it sweeps away all of that clutter that happens because of the technology. And uh I I mean I I walk, I walk on the road here and it's all wooded, and there's there's a few houses along the way and stuff, but I really feel such a strong need to be out there, and particularly if it's real cold or something like that. I really like that feeling of that physical feeling of okay, it's a little harsh, but it makes me feel alive kind of thing, because I can I am not paying attention to anything but walking and walking and feeling feeling how that feels. And it's a it's a major stress reliever for me. And it it's uh it's something I've done my whole life, and it's really helpful in in gaining some clarity in the midst of what we all live with.

SPEAKER_00 2:30:56

Oh yeah, yeah. And this whole like grounding experience and whatnot, there's been uh uh some you know, with like the paleo diet and everything where people are talking about like where was the last evolutionary jump in our gut and our and our experiences, whatnot, and then we have this like technological boom um that happens and we get so wrapped up in what technology and what um enlightenment um has to offer, I guess, that we forget some of our basic instincts. And um there's there's um there's a school of thought that in this whole like grounding or earthing, it's it's basically just being out in nature, like it like how we've been for, you know, as long as humans have existed. Um, and that there's a visceral experience that you get and a and a like a very basic evolutionary um awareness that like when you're out and you are navigating um the earth and experiencing nature and the trees and other things, that it it it uh it grounds you and your sensory perception and whatnot in uh in a way that we are actually more attuned to than going out and like walking on the street of Manhattan or something.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:11

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:32:13

And um, yeah, and I've I've thought a lot about that. Like uh being able to check out and to um zone in on things that are more simplistic, I think is uh is a really interesting uh uh intellectual paradigm because you know, like as as you in your medium are talking about making like bringing things down to a simple, understandable concept out of a lot of complexity, um, I think that one of the reasons why your art form feels good to look at and everything and interact with is because it it draws a parallel with the human condition to what our basic instinct is, if that makes sense. Like what you're trying to do in your medium is the same thing that I think that humans are naturally predisposed to, which is taking complex things or complex systems that we live in and interact in, and bringing them down to a simplistic um concept that we can then chew on and metabolize in some way in our own lives.

SPEAKER_02 2:33:23

Yes, I think I think that's that's a good observation. Um because we relate to everything around us because excuse me, whether we are aware of it or not, we're sensing the vibration of it. And I think the attunement because we are part of we are nature, we are part of nature, and I think that there is a um This is gonna this gets out there a little bit. But there's an energy transfer it's that occurs getting us back in touch with our essence when we're out there. And that's something that the farther away that you get from it, I think the more chaoticness there is in your own head and emotions and things like that. And the harder it is to think, clearly. And I think that is almost kind of evident these days.

SPEAKER_00 2:34:37

Yeah. Well, I I um I think you know, like uh like I I think that we can agree that um like the universe and energy and things like that exist, right? Uh they're fairly constant, I would guess, right? Oh yeah. But I think what's what I like I what I feel is kind of profound about that is we exist in this space and we are really just looking glasses. We're we're basically just lenses that focus things in a different way on different mediums and things like that. So if I think about it that way, there's an awful lot of empowerment because the way that I see life, the way that I see existence, the way that I experience things and and um manipulate the world around me is is magic. Like it it is something that is is intrinsic to me alone. And I I look at things that it, you know, we we have similarities in the way that we see things, but my experiences and my life trajectory augments the way that my objective lens projects things. And and you know, like that's that's I think what's fascinating about, I mean, not to get too like deep and esoteric. I'm sure that some people like listen to this and they're like, oh, just give me some like techniques and ideas about uh uh stuff. But I'm like, you know, like those, those are out there. There's people that like, you know, talk about technically how to do things a lot. And I'm not I'm not really interested in that. I'm interested in like um I'm like I'm a I'm like a perpetual band-aid ripper. I really do not um feel comfortable if there is too much um order and too much like uh regularity to things, it kind of bores me. Uh so um my wife will call me a contrarian. Um I but I I do like I do like talking about things that are uncomfortable. I do like uh talking about things that are um out there. Um and uh I I think that the thing that I personally I'm I'm very like uh like um not biased in this um I guess, but uh when I look at you in relation to like what I would really love to see from you is some way taking all of this life experience that you've had because I value it so much, and being able to see it in a medium where I can learn from it uh technically, right? Um and I know that you've talked about uh doing some type of you know online education um system or something like that, but is that uh on on the grand scheme of like kind of where you're you're going with your own artistry and um and conveying that to the next generation and other you know willing participants in your knowledge, have you thought um a lot about you know jumping off on that and doing some um like videos or online education or things like things of that nature?

SPEAKER_02 2:37:52

Yes, actually I I have thought about that a lot because I think that I have a lot of information that that a lot of people would like to have. They might not even know that they don't because they don't know what they don't know, that I have all these little tips and tricks and stuff like that that I've learned over the years and stuff that would save time and ideas like that. And I really think that um I I that I have some information that would be beneficial for for people and that I'm really wanting to do these online classes where self-paced videos, um text, explanations, all of that, um and just lay out what I do and how I do it, um, including the secret stuff that people don't usually tell you about. But you know, I think that there's some valuable information that it's hard to do it's it's hard to get it any other way, and I think that I can actually present it with more clarity and and more refinement and more detailed information if I do it in a in a video format where I have time to edit and think it through and not because I I have I do teach an occasional lockback class up at New England School of Medical Work, and I love doing that, and it's just a great place to teach. And I've had excellent classes, and the the students have been fantastic. But you're you have a finite number of days, and it's so much information to get across when people are trying to follow what you're doing, do those things, and there are inevitable mistakes that happen, and they there because the time is so limited, there's there's details that I can't possibly get into at that time, even if I remembered to do that, um, just time-wise, and I think that a really well thought out self- self-paced class might be the best way to present the information.

SPEAKER_00 2:40:20

Yeah. Well, um I will be one of your first students. I mean, like I like I'd be more than happy to um uh pay for that kind of knowledge, right? And and to be able to have the perspective. Because like, you know, like they say like a lot of people have really good advice. It's you know, go and learn from somebody. Like if you're getting into nice and whatnot, like take a few classes and and try to feel out whether that's something that you actually want to get into. Um but there's there's a a pretty large disparity between those who are just getting into a craft where I think that the knowledge is pretty pretty well established, right? Not the tips and tricks, uh uh like like sophisticated tips and tricks, but like a baseline. And then there's for the rest of us that are trying to push into a different echelon or a different way of thinking about things, there's there's not a lot. Um like Bob Bob Trazol is going to be launching his um um his online education stuff. Kyle Royer has been doing one. There's a few that are like uh Jason Knight is another one. But uh there's there's not a lot of people uh like makers out there that will sacrifice their own um uh creative process in doing what they have done in order to be able to try to encapsulate that knowledge and present it back to um people like me who like need uh, you know, I mean, I need slash one uh uh an inspiration kick to be able to think differently or outside of the box about things. Um and as lazy as it is for me to say, I'd much rather just like, you know, I'd much rather watch somebody and and um understand what they're doing in order to kind of sculpt how I want to do things, um, I still think it's very beneficial because if if people don't can't talk to you and people can't experience uh you know Delaney and all of the magic that you're producing, um I that's one thing that will be lost to the ether uh when you're no longer here. And I think that a um, you know, videos and and getting more experience with you on on online and on that medium is something that I I I don't know what the impact will be exactly, but I know that there's a lot of people that need it. And I don't know that there's a better example of uh an artist that I could think of to present it in the way that I think that you can present it. So I I strongly encourage it.

SPEAKER_02 2:42:58

Uh thank you. I I appreciate that, Aaron. Um it's hard to know if you know if anybody would really want it or anything like that when you're inside yourself thinking about doing it. I would like I I I really appreciate your encouragement on it because I I do think there's some value there. And basically the way I look at it is um I can it's teaching another language uh because I I talk about this sometimes about you know I have this vocabulary, I have this jewelry vocabulary, and I have this whole language in my head and all these things that I can draw on because I know that language that uh I didn't have before I learned how to do those things. And I think it's teaching that language that another language, and I'm not talking about teaching jewelry stuff, I'm talking about teaching knife stuff that is so um to see it from a different perspective and it can and point out the things that are important to know and that are helpful to know. I think that could be of value. And I I I'm looking forward to doing it.

SPEAKER_00 2:44:17

Yeah, well, it's uh you can be the Rosetta stones for the uh the like the the knives, knives versus jewelry and and these creative mediums that that uh mesh. Like there's a lot of really great aspects of learning jewelry and precious metalworking and stone setting, and then also how knives and that medium kind of uh intersect. Um and that's what we need more of is the Rosetta Stones uh to help us to cross-translate those things. To me, that's a very powerful uh uh thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:51

Yeah, yeah, I think I think so too. Um and what I learned by making jewelry first really uh helped me so much because there's techniques from that that I brought over into this that it were just so helpful that people that were just knife makers had never heard of before. And it just was so helpful to be able to have those skills, and I would like to to pass those on to people too.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:24

But I I think that it's uh it's an it's an exciting thing to do. I I'm interested in video editing and making and all that stuff. So that'll be a fun new thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:45:34

Well, yeah. I mean, I uh you know, you're you're a bag of tricks that um I'm constantly interested to see what you're gonna be pulling out. And um uh it's it's kind of weird, you know, in podcasts where you think like you feel like you could talk to somebody for a long time and stretch them out um to figure out what a good transition point is um and like stopping them. But like uh I know that you have to get back to uh life and other things that you're doing. Um and I appreciate that you've invested so much time in speaking uh speaking uh just about you and the the like the universe and things like that. Um but I I don't there's a portion of this episode that I I'll feel uh sad about it ending um because I know that we'll like go on our own paths and uh experience our own things and whatnot. But I like I just I want to make sure that's not uh uh understated how much I appreciate you, how much I appreciate what you are doing for the industry, and taking this time to talk with me and uh to also let um listeners be a fly on the wall, because um these are the things that really kind of keep me um engaged in this medium of podcasting um and growing in it because uh you're like a a candle in a really dark room that provides a light that keeps us kind of wanting to venture and figure out how large that room is. And um it's it does not uh go unnoticed or unappreciated by me of just how um uh how how much other things you could be doing in the you know, two and two almost three-hour conversation with me. You could be doing other stuff. So I mean I appreciate your energy and I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:31

Well, thank you for saying all that. And I have to say, I I really appreciate that you asked me. And I really had thought, well, okay, well, we'll do this about an hour and that'll be it, and that's good, that's a nice amount of time. But I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this with you and our conversation, and I like where you took it and how much fun you have made this be for me too. You you are have a real talent for this, and I really enjoy you. And I I would like to have more conversations too.

SPEAKER_00 2:48:15

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, and I I you know it's it's my show. I get to do what I want, right? So anytime you want to come back on and we can talk about different things and be more focused towards different concepts. Um, that's I love that kind of stuff. So I mean, we can, you know, it doesn't have to be a uh four-hour uh conversation on these Soterics, and we could talk about like uh other things too. So um, you know, anytime that you want to come back on and we want to talk about things, let's uh let's uh talk about different ideas and whatnot, and then we can just get on the the the podcast and riff about them. And I think that that'd be really great.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:48

That sounds that sounds like fun. I I you know I think thank you so much, Aaron. I uh I really have enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_00 2:49:01

Yeah, absolutely. It's my pleasure entirely.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:03

I have I have really enjoyed your mind and your questions and your responses and your thoughts about what we've talked about here. Um it's it it's been very fun and enjoyable for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:49:20

Yeah, well that's uh that's a high praise coming from you. And I uh you know, I just appreciate you. I really admire you. So um, you know, kind of with that all being said, um, I know you need to get back to it. Um and uh I will edit this up, but uh I can't think of uh almost a single thing other than a little blip of like internet connectivity stuff that we have to edit out. But um other than that, uh it's uh you know, I've just been a real pleasure riffing with you. So thank you for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:49

It's it has been a real pleasure. I and I very much appreciate you asking me.

SPEAKER_00 2:49:55

Yeah, thank you. And uh this is this your first podcast? I think that we talked about that earlier a little bit, but I know that you've done interviews, but first podcast?

SPEAKER_02 2:50:03

Yes, first podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:05

Okay, well, um it's uh pleasure being uh the first podcast experience that you've had. I hope that there's many more that you uh get invited on because uh I know that you got a lot of stuff that you can say. Um I just hope that you know people invite you on to pick your brain and get more of uh delayed out into the uh the podcast sphere.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:28

All right, well, you have a you have a good one and we'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:31

Okay, you too, Aaron. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:34

All right, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:35

Take care. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:39

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Good Old Blades podcast. Remember that you are loved and God bless.