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

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Refurbished Dragon's Eye for Scotty and Diane

A couple years ago, I made a donation to the auction of the Haw River Assembly's Burrito Bash Fundraiser at the General Store Cafe (remembered very fondly). It was my first ever tredknest (of its kind). It had been incubating, like a great heron's egg, in the nest of my mind, and when that big bird of an event sat on it, it hatched, just minutes before the event began, and thus slipped into the world, by the great graces of Germane, the first such tredknest!

It featured a tredknot bowl of hybrid bike tire, woven into a sort of shallow basket. Holding the space with in this, was a floor of reflective baby moon, like the moon reflected in the surface of a pond, so that the sky looks as though it was sitting at the ponds bottom. And cushioning this moon, was a silken lining of feathers, in this case from a purple chicken, it seems, but you get the picture.

Strangely, I wonder why, but as I made this thing, in the 1/2 hour before it was due, I was thinking of my good friend Diane Swan, and her great beau, and bandmate, Scotty Young, and their charming home in Bynum, perched just up the hill from that cool running Haw River...
Why was I thinking of these two cool cats, and their abode?
Well, I guess I must have been thinking that that was the nest, where this knest belonged!...

I can't quite recall who was playing that night. Was it Saludos Compi? Anyhow, the bidding was tense.
My good friend, and one time co-worker from School House of Wonder, Ken Moore, who incidentaly dug, mounded and planted most of the NC Botanical Gardens by hand, put in the first bid! He wanted it, and you know what, it suited him like a T!

However, once she set eyes on it, Diane herself wanted it more! And at the end of the night, lo and behold, it went home with the people, to the home that I had dreamed it would!

I only found out much later, from Germane James, who, taking one look at my pitiful expression, a had allowed this donation way past its deadline/bedtime, that the piece had in fact been one of the highest earners of the evening! (which I find a little hard to believe, considering my company there, but I'll take it!).

ANYWAYS, to Bynum to knest went, and there it rested for several years. However, as I visited from time to time, soon it was discovered that the used innertube I had employed, to hold every thing in place, was no longer worthy of its duty (tires are made to withstand the outside elements, innertubes  really are not). And so, for about a year, I rode around with a new lawnmower innertube in my trunk, completely forgetting about it everytime I set foot in their wonderful house, full of a great company, food and things.

Until just the other day, I up and obsconded with it! I seized it and returned it back to my studio.
And there, returning it back to the work bench at which is was hewn, I went back to work on it, and fashioned it a new style. It was after all, perhaps 3 years since I had made this, my first!
And in that 3 years, its DNA had evolved, though, as DNAgoes, essentially remained the same.

Since its feather boa had been appropriated in its derilect state, I opted for a redu, that would do without the feathers, a glassy dragon's eye.

And so, with the new inner tube, a new set of panty hose, and some armorall and glass cleaner, I refashioned and sparkled up the piece, into a glimmering dragon's eye.
Perhaps I had Scottsman Scotty more in mind this time around.

I delivered it them the other day.
Scotty took right to it

and equally gratifying, so did Diane.

Wow, double whammy!
I just score over and over with these two trusty friends, again and again!