The Caliper Studio. The first thing that you will notice are Len Provisor's posters throughout. They are important to me. Although I have done tons of pen drawings, I usually do not follow a drawing when making a pen. There is no telling what will occur in the shop after I focus on a certain material. It usually suggests other materials…and a new pen will take on it's own character. It doesn't mean that every pen will be extraordinarily different. It just means that the experience of expectation will prevail when I walk into this space. And what I expect is to do something different.

It would not be fitting if I didn't have an announcement of an Agnes Martin exhibition, and, a Lenore Tawney exhibition somewhere on a wall where the work is assembled. They were among my oldest friends going back to the mid-50's at Coenties Slip in Manhattan. Each of our studios were a block or so apart. I was a very young man then . They were already very mature artists. Agnes made her early minimalist drawings on inexpensive note paper. She gave me one as a wedding gift. I think it has influenced me greatly since I often use simple industrial plastics and combine them with elegant resins made by Mazzucchelli and the like. It is funny how life experiences will follow you and hang on with a certain fierceness. The yellow announcement shows a Martin Mullen painting.

This small worktop are where pressure bars from Canada (Woodbin), sacs, and buttons meet with barrels and caps.	The big Grizzly lathe is where squarish chunks are rounded into rods .. then machined down and hollowed into final elements.

This next machine is a small "Sherline" lathe. I do detailed work here …like sections. Alongside, to the right are small partial slabs of Mazzucchelli cracked ice resins. I try not to use too much of them at any one time since there isn't much left. There are two different reds, blue, two different greens, grey, and, white with black lines. The photograph doen't show it, but, there is a tiny lathe even further to the right which is used for polishing and such…this one is attached to an exhaust. That said , you still have to wear a suitable mask. Frank Dubiel impressed that on me just about every time we met at a show. It took me a little while to learn that Frank was one of the all time good guys in our industry.

There are rods stuffed and piled everywhere. It is like being within a giant palette. If you look carefully, there is material stuffed in cardboard boxes under the benches. ..not so much for quantity , but variety of color and character of material. The back walls hold pictures of my son Paul (when he was a kid), Pope John Paul II, and, a drawing of my grandfather asleep in an armchair.

Coffee cans hold rods pretty nicely…especially the old, large, metal ones. Most are Mazz. vintage rods. Leaning against the wall are celluloid planks (Mazz. of course) that I saw up as needed. It amazes me now they have shrunk in length over these past few years.	Brass buttons are hard to find. Dick Johnson gave me a bagfull once at an Ohio show . When I polish them, I hold each one by inserting one prong of the offset needle nosed pliers into the recess hole and polish them on a cloth wheel.