The Butcher, the Baker?
No ambition. It was always just get it done. Just cut the meat or whip up some batter. They weren’t artists in the true sense. No attention to craft, no eye toward legacy. You even mentioned style and they went on the defensive. What’s more, they had no mentors. Name a famous butcher. Exactly. (At least I had Paul Revere–where silver was concerned.)
I wanted more and rightly so.
I’d shown talent as far back as my first Montessori menorah. The teacher called it spirited, even whimsical, and trust me, she didn’t say that to all the kids. Mine was different. Inspired.
In time I achieved by 29 what most candlestick makers hope to achieve in a lifetime: not just fame, but renown. I was, by all accounts, the most important candlestick artist of my generation. A visionary, yes. An eccentric? Of course. I was to some degree the harbinger of change for which candlestick makers had been thirsting for generations.
And then, like all great men, I overstretched. By now my hubris is widespread–legendary even. I’m sure you remember. The Candelabra. The fire. The wax of forty-thousand votives running in the Munich streets.
Where have I been for the last 18 years?
Miami. Sao Paulo. Virginia Beach. Fayetteville. Wherever candlestick makers gathered.
At a time when everyone was going bottles, I returned to the fundamentals: balance, efficiency, line. There’s an elegance to simplicity, and I see that now. A candlestick should compliment its candle. Even the simplest of candles is more important than the most elaborate of candlesticks. I’d forgotten the secret of my craft, the secret candlestick makers have known for millennia: humility.
Next month I’ll launch a new line of candlesticks, and whether the world takes notice is not my concern.
But they will. They won’t know what hit them.
* The Murky Fringe 100th Post
