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

Saturday, June 30, 2012

A VISIT TO THE MONCURE 'TIRE MINES'


A few evenings ago, I made an Eno Fest supplies run to the home of my good friends Scott and Amy Durso. Scott and Amy live near Jordan Lake, and it was Amy who just last Fall alerted me to the bonanza of tires neatly stacked on the boat ramp, booty, as it turned out, from a bank blitz by Fran Di Giorno, with the Army Corps of Engineers driving the get away pantoon.

(LINK TO PREVIOUS POST)

Scott and Amy have been nice enough to allow me temporary storage of these tires in their lovely forest, using a trailer as an all too fitting container for this pile ;)
While Scott and Amy tried to warn me about the substantial risk of copperheads in the pile, I have to confess that my real focus that evening was not the snakes I should have been watching for, nor the tires that I should have been loading. Instead, I was captivated by a tiny little fellow who seemed to have made my pile of tires his home, or at least his man-cave- what we call here a ‘fence racer’.





Well the fact that that day was Summer Solstice the longest day of the year, worked well in my favor, and well against his, because I hunted and harassed that poor fellow around and around and around those piles of tires well into the damp and dimming night. I think he would have agreed that it was probably the longest day of his year!

“Man, are you still followin me? What do you WANT FROM ME?!” He seemed to ask, as he eyed me accusingly.  I tried to explain that all I wanted to capture was his image, his jagged, scaly skin, and serpentine curves, played out elegantly against the scaley, curving surface of the tires. To capture him crouching in the cool cavernous curves of tire architecture. Didn’t he know, he was a coup de gras!



Finally, once I felt satifyied that I had sufficiently drained the evening of its last drops of sunlight, and distilled from this scene the best images that I was going to get with the equipment and patience that I had, I resumed my sorting and collecting of tires, careful as I could be, not to let these behemoths roll over on him.

At some point, I was relived to hear a plop in leaves behind me, and see him scamper over to the base of a small dogwood tree. While he seemed a little exasperated, as if to say “fine, have your stinking tires!” it was somewhat relieving to see him returning to this other, native home of his, whose winding grooves are perhaps a little bit softer, more ancient and more delicate, like him. But no, I can’t blame you buddy, I think tires are cool too!




TIRE PRINTS
(Two found object prints, from the same site, of very different sorts)

CALLOGRAPH

While I was collecting tires at Scott and Amy’s, I came across an interesting phenomenon, two, very different, Tire Prints.
Now, tire printing is not a completely new concept. Tire tracks in the sand etc.
But this is a kind that I have never seen, or rather, never paid attention too…
The first of these was I guess what I would call a Natural Callograph. In printmaking, to make a callograph, the artist uses a large mechanical wheel to press various textured objects into the ‘ground’ or layer of resist on the plate, before the impressions are etched. This can be a lot of fun!


In this case, ‘the ground’ was literally, the ground! A tire at the bottom of a stack of tires, had, pressed by the weight of those above it, left the tire’s radio-symmetric cupped impression in this surface.
The plants beneath had blanched from lack of luck and light, and a long earthworm had taken up residence there in.

Additionally, while removing this tire, which happened to be one with a lot of river water still left captured inside of it, some of this rusty, orange water seeped up, filling, and following the groove left by the tire, and creating a bright orange ring!

I wish that knew how to follow through, and create an actual print from this embellished surface. For the time being, this digital impression will have to do…




MONO PRINT
For some reason, this had a very specific ‘impression’ on me, some kind of primal Rorshac of Anima.


This was infact the impression of a tire and its wheel hub left on a sheet of plastic covering the tires to keep them from become a misquito nursery. Pine needles had piled up on the plastic, acting as the slow weight of a printing press, pressing it down on the tire. Condensation collecting under the tarp appearently aided in making this image.

"I'm an artist too!"
One more denizen of the Moncure Tire Mines

Speaking of prints, I worked my favorite shot from the series of the lizard into a poster.
I'll post it to my Speyedr Graphix & Illustration blog asap, and provide a link.