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

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

INTERLUDE 2 Nefarious Avian Activities

           I can’t look the other way any longer. The signs are all there, staring me in the face. And D’ Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt…no, no. Time face the facts. Wrens are using my studio as cover for a bug trafficking operation.

            My suspicion should have been roused the first time I caught the male wren returning, a few days after the kiddos hopped the nest. All the hubbub had finally died down, and now that the last little grouchy little grandpapito had made that great leap of faith off of the window sill; things had finally returned to the peacefull post partum period I have come to expect this time of year.
            So I was surprised to see the little brown male wren hop through window and make a hasty b-line over to my kitchen area, pausing only for a startled moment on my stereo when we discovered one another. We eyed one another with surprise and suspicion. “What are you doing back here?” I wondered. He only begrudgingly acknowledging me with a tip of his beak. “Oh hey, whats up?” he seemed to mumble. Talk about awkward. After all we had been through, this is all I get? “Oh hey, what’s up? I just came to get a few things….”…? and then he went on his way rummaging through my kitchen.

            And so the traffic began. Now, I might have a spider here or there hiding in a corner of my studio, but I don’t have the kind of merchandize that these cats are slinging. Big fat beige grubs, dangling from their beaks, where are they getting these things from?

            My theory is that they are mining these things from somewhere across the street in front of my studio. And that their nestlings are still holed up some where behind my studio.
            So rather than take the risk of shuttling these things over the vast black expanse of my roof top, the safer little wren thing to do would be to cut through the ‘thicket’ of my studio, their old neighborhood. They know the sculpture, every tire branch, the circuit hopped from one sculpture to another has been etched into the micro circuitry of their reptile brains.

            And so it is, that my studio, with its wide low ceiling, and perches galore provides the perfect foil for transporting a bumper crop of bugs.

            Have they offered me a cut of the action, for safely harboring their nefarious activities? Ha! They fly through like they own the place! And I, like a poor peasant, watching through drawn curtains as the narcos conduct their business in the street, endure and wait.