Welcome

Ahoy Matey, and Welcome to REPTIRE, an intermittent ‘ship’s blog’, chronicling the slow rise in the South Easterly skies of Reptire Designs; a studio that designs and crafts always artful, and sometimes useful THINGAMABOBS from old Indian Cucachou, aka ReTired Rubber.

Down Below, Ye shall find a permanent 'flagship post' marking the Maiden Voyage of Reptire Designs.

And below that, in the ‘hull’, can be found more recent posts chronicling the daring new adventures of Reptire Designs, dashed with small bits of whimsy, spotted pickerel, local color, and lizard lore..

In fact, on the right, in pale purple, ye shall find the Captain's Log’s Table of Previous Posts, which ye can peruse by year, month, and title to ye hearts content.

If ye haven't gotchyer sea legs yet, My Pretty, Ye can take a gander at our website at www.reptiredesigns.com, to get a proper Landlubber's Introduction.

Thanks for stopping in, I do hope you enjoy your visit aboard this ship! HARHARHARHAR.......

Sincerely, Travius Von Cohnifus

Captain, Founder, Indentured Servant, Rubber Alligator Wrestlor Extraordinaire a' this here ship.

enter the treadknot

Welcome
On September 26th, 2006, I launched my tire art/design business, Reptire Designs, with a solo exhibition of my artwork in The Green Gallery at The Scrap Exchange Center for Creative Reuse, in Durham, NC. For many reasons, it was a night that I will always remember, and I am grateful to Laxmi (my girlfriend at the time) and Edie (my mother, still) for dutifully documenting while I shmoozed, so that I may now shmare a taste of the evening with anyone who was not able to attend...



On a cool but lively autumn night-before-Center Fest, a stream of friends and curious strangers trickled (like pebbles through a rain stick) through the forest of odds and ends (that roost at night in The Scrap Exchange), out into the warm light of the back savanna, a scene utterly glopped with bizarre rubbery hybrids. Tentative and curious, the visitors craned their necks, nibbled, pecked, stood back, moved in closer. From the walls, glassy mirror eyes gazed back through black unblinking eyelids, while beneath the visitor's feet, in a steamy drainage cistern, a mortal drama unfolded. Primordial forms, with no eyes at all, sat puckered on stoops. A cascade of glittering steal droplets formed a curtain, to which clung a colony of tiny tire knotlettes.

Vito D., a long-time collabator down from the Asheville area, caressed the warming air with his Strange Little Folk music. I bobbed and I flit, and at an increasing clip-someone must have opened the faucet a bit....for soon I was swooning, I just about lost it! As the evening progressed, to my delight and amazement, 'family' from Durham, Chapel Hill, Pittsboro, Hillsboro, Siler City, Asheville, and Fresno all made it! From the Cohn Clan to the Steudel Clan to the CFS Clan; from the WWC Clan to the Duke Ac Pub Clan to the SAF Clan; from the Bike Shop Clan to the Ninth St. Clan to the Scrap Clan... and every one in between, guys, they were all appearing before my stunned, blinking eyes. While I spun and I splayed, Vito now played-CHURNED- up a torrent of gritty ditties; while a staff volunteer (Brandon's a photographer, I swear) whipped up pitchers of Mango Lassies. And The 'Scrap Exchange girls' worked the door, the counter, and the floor, going "cha-CHING!", cha-CHING!","cha-CHING!".!.



By the end of the night, hundreds of friends, acquaintances and had-been-strangers had poured in, poured over the work, and partaken in, what was for me and my art, a monumental communal feast. And on top of it all, I got to place many of my preemies in hands that I love and trust, and in several instances, hands that fit them like gloves. What a privilage to be able to connect with people this way. Heading into the turbid seas of small business, I can confidently say that if I drown tomorrow, I am at least blessed today with the memory of (as Vito later put it) one authentically good Durham night.



Thanks to all of you who were there; in body and/or spirit.





Reclaimed-wood Builder and Reptire Collector Howard Staab enjoying magwi knot at the Scrap Exchange

Reclaimed-wood Builder and Reptire Collector Howard Staab enjoying magwi knot at the Scrap Exchange
I can't think of anything more rewarding for an artist than to see someone interacting with their artwork. Photo by Laxmi Haynes

Sammy and Dannette contemplate

Sammy and Dannette contemplate
Photograph by Laxmi Haynes

Cascade Colony of Knotlets

Cascade Colony of Knotlets
They would go with your jacket, would they not Claire?

Laxmi Resplendent

Laxmi Resplendent

Mavis In The Mist

Mavis In The Mist
Photograph by Laxmi Haynes

Tire Amazement

Tire Amazement
Photograph by Edie Cohn

Friday, October 1, 2010

Workin on that Worm

Well, today was a big day for Tyrius The Only Tire Worm in the World, that he knows of.
Today, Tyrius became not only a brother, but also grew about 3 times in length.

It was also a big day for me, a kind of turn around.

Yesterday was utterly depressing, actually the last 6 days have been.
Not only did someone break into my car Saturday night, and steal, of ALL FRICKIN THINGS!!!!-
the section of 10 tires sewn together that I had brought to show the organizers....
On Wednesday night (two nights ago), someone else broke into my van and ransacked it, stealing a couple semi valuable items (to me). I stayed up into the early morning working with the police officer to find usable prints, and then the next day, I went in, and realized that wow,
maybe this is just not going to work. Do I really have enough tires to do this? I was about ready to through in the towel to tell you the truth.


I had started off trying to give an honest effort. I 'Reclaimed' the cone from Atomic IceCream,(which had in fact been borrowed from Tyrius, when he was trying to shed a few pounds for the puppet show. And to this I added a few more sections that I'd made, canibalizing my stash of good mountain used bike tires (that's ok, the mountain bikers of the world will make more). Here goes a cool shot of 'tha toob'.


Tyrius expressing his
'Inner Tuba'

Finally I had 'fashioned' a Nu Toob, boob, that was almost as long as old Tyrius himself, a new playmate. So I drug it out on the floor, and layed end to end. Then it was surgery time. First I bebutted Tyrius, yes, cut off his butt, which wasn't fun, but it also wasn't a great butt anyways, had been maligned by those puppeteers, don't know what they were doing to the poor guy..
I'll spare you the gruesome pictures.
And then It really was surgery time.

The site of Surgery
t
Tyrius, under the knife.

Healed! A succuessful grafting

Thus Tyrius had grown two fold. He will tell you it was eating his Wheaties, up and down, but you know the truth.

Now came the depressing part. I had figure that I needed to make 2 more Tyriuses, and probably 'a Little' more,  to pull this thing off. But when I tried to tie him into a knot, well, I didn't get very far...


Hey, thats pretty sexy big guy, but that's not gonna get us into ReuseConex!




Oh god, I'm sunk.

That is what I thought. I suppose the dispair of the last week was finally catching up to me.
I've gotten all of these people excited about this thing, invested their time and energy, read about it in the paper, and I've got half a knot to show!
The way it looks I will need another 2 Tyriuses, ontop of these two!

It was time to restrategize, and my options didn't look too hot.
I went home and took a nap.




But today, I went in, and just decided to sew what ever tires I had, and see where I landed. I could guesstimate all I wanted, but as I have never built a sculpture quite like this one, I wouldn't really know where I stood until I had exhausted my supply.
So I just went at it, all day, and added every tire to it that I could. I sewed up the segments that my good friends had assembled for me. I had hoped to save this pleasure for them, I really did want to, but  I had to remind myself that they came and did this to help me, and this is what I needed to do at that moment.

So, I just sewed and sewed.
And I finally hit my stride,
reaching for the bulls eye, to sew every tire I have for the project.

Finally, I had a whole Nother Tyrius, his 2nd cousin. So I attached him too.
And what I came up with is not there yet, but it did seem 'with in reach' which is really what this is going to become.

I'd love to have to big pairs of lips on each one, reaching towards one another, yearning for self love.

As he stands though, pretty cute!  Check Tyrius out, peeking out of his womb of self actualization!

WE CAN DO IT MAN!



Now I just have to find 50 more mountain bike tires...no problem!














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