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.
Modern moment
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.
Eames splints
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.
