In The Eyes of the Beholder

Remember in the movie A Christmas Story ( the movie which made the Red Rider Bb gun famous along with the line”…you’ll shot your eyer out”? I the movie there is a great part where Ralphie’s dad wins some contest and is sent a plastic women’s leg which has been fashioned into a table lamp? This scene is truly indicative of “in the eye of the beholder. I snapped this image today,with my new camera, of , what I believe a similar work of art.

This lamp was built by a friend of mine who lives in Roosevelt,Utah. The fellow has had some significant head injury in his life and has had some significant challenges to over come in his life. Bryon built this lamp a year or so ago and has been dragging the lamp round the state in hopes of finding a buyer. This is so much more then a lamp, it’s a work of art. He should really consider placing the lamp on Ebay and see where it goes. Bryon has made a couple of these drift/desert masterpieces. Sadly none of the lamps have sold very well but have made great gifts at fund raisers. This lamp is well over five feet tall, needs a lampshade but could also do double duty as a coat rack. Bryon loves this lamp, its his lamp he fashioned it with his own hands. I know his attachment. Some of you readers who have been with this blog know I make hooks. I fashion hooks from discarded pieces of oak I get from furniture manufacturers. I think I love each and every hook I make out of a plain piece of oak. I knock off the edges then either turn on a lather to round or jut vice up and go at the stick with an orbital sander or just sand paper. When I have made a piece smooth to my standards, I drill a hole in one end then I twist a bike hook in and I’m done. I think my hooks are wonderful examples of low-tech assistive technology. I love my hooks and I can barely give them away. A couple of years ago I was really hyped up to do a mail order delivery business of hooks from my garage (actually I was just tying my expense and time on this wood project. I bet I made over a hundred hooks that year and sold maybe three but gave a lot away. I was selling the hooks cheap too! $5.00 for a regular sized hook( up to36 inches) and $10.00 for my deck hooks, hock which can 48-60 inches long, long enough a person could pick a hose off the lawn from a yard deck. I still have hooks in my garage and I still lover my hooks and believe in them. In fact, just last week I fund a new source for oak and plan to secure a van load of wood this coming Spring when the Winter passes and I can clean out my garage enough to work in my shop.

There’s not a whole lot of difference between old Bryon and me: just two guys driven to work with their hands and trying to be validated for their efforts.