Splintering Along
Several years ago I had what I might consider one of my greatest "modern
moments". I was trolling through a great state of the Northwest and stopped
in a little antique store filled to the brim with depression glass, Maxfield
Parrish prints, and more baubles and beads than you could shake a stick at.
Not
a modern nugget in sight; certainly, one would think, a lost cause or at the
very least, another wasted ten minutes. The owner asked me what I was looking for,
and while I usually respond with "whatever my eye catches" to avoid a
20 minute explaination outlining the differenes between Eames Chairs and Penguin
Ice Buckets, I stated "midcentury modern stuff". The only other
customer in the store snapped his head toward me and proclaimed he knew a man,
who happened to be the largest collector of American Military Memorablia in the
country, who had a barn full of Eames Leg Splints*.
Realizing this stop was, in
fact, time well spent, I was on the horn with the military collector guy, got
directions for a 20 mile drive in a snowstorm, to my new modern mecca, minus the
tanks. I tipped my hat to the shopkeeper, blew a kiss to the kind customer as I
promised him a kickback, and was off like a prom dress.
Low and behold the military collector guy, with his eastern european accent
and his scurrying wife, led me to what might have been the prettiest sight in
modern history, a true hybrid of organic and modern design. When the barn doors
flung open, I saw above my head thousands of single and boxed wrapped Eames
Splints, shoved into the rafters and atop the hay bales, to and fro amongst the
military tanks. The military collector guy chuckled at the craziness and
excitement I felt, and at the same time I took him for crazy.
For a song and a dance I packed 20 splints under my arm, took a polaroid of
us all together, and made my way back through the same snowstorm.
One month later I called the military collector guy and asked him to send 20
more splints. For an addtional $5 shipping I received them within 5 days. One
month later I called him for more splints but to no avail... as it turned out,
someone beat me to both the punch and the bank.
-The End, but really the beginning
* Plywood leg splints designed by Ray and Charles Eames for use during
WWII. As the use of plywood and other important materials was limited to
military production only, here the Eames' perfected their knowledge and skills
in the mass production manufacturing of bent plywood, thus leading them to
the design and production of their Plywood Chairs for Herman Miller.
