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10 April 2013
I am not taking custom orders at this time,
nor will I be taking any further orders for
the foreseeable future. I will continue
to make knives and swords and these will be
posted prominently on the website.
3 August 2012
Over the past several months I have alluded to
unspecified health difficulties and sometimes
spoken of migraines and problems with
production. There has been some
speculation about this and now some rumors have
started. After consulting with my wife I feel
that the time has come to 'read you all in' on
what is going on.
Many years ago I was in the Army. During
the course of my service I had some unpleasant
experiences that resulted in my having clinical
depression and PTSD. No, I will not
discuss those experiences online; please don't
ask. These medical conditions
went undiagnosed and untreated until October of
last year when matters came to a head and I
suffered a breakdown of sorts. I was
unable to work and quickly got help from the
Veteran's Administration's health care services
and have been under treatment for these
conditions since early this year. In this
period my migraines also increased in frequency
to an average of 3 per week, also seriously
interfering with my ability to work.
Between October of last year and May of this
year I probably spent a total of less than 20
days in the shop working. It has been a
terribly difficult decision but after much
soul-searching and consulting with my therapist
and close friends I have applied for VA
disability. It appears that I am likely to
receive this some time in the next few months.
I have been encouraged by my therapist to view
my issues as an injury rather than a mental
illness but the practical effects have been the
same. I have had a great deal of
difficulty working on projects that do not
'inspire me.' When i have forced
myself to work on them the results have been
less good than I am happy with or than my
customers deserve (or would be happy with)
There are also problems with supplies and
materials in the shop; as you can imagine my
medical issues have had a disastrous effect on
our finances and resupplying has been very, very
difficult and infrequent. This has all
combined to put me massively behind on my custom
orders, some of which are prepaid.
Eventually I will need to complete these orders
or repay the persons that made them but at the
moment it seems that I can do neither.
Circumstances are such that I can offer no firm
timeline for doing either, which bothers me a
great deal but these issues will be dealt with
when and as I am able to.
For now my treatment and recovery progresses and
I am doing what I can as I can in the
shop. On the good side I have reconnected
with my passion for my work. My recovery
however proceeds in fits and starts and I
sometimes encounter unexpected pitfalls that
need to be worked through before I can move
on. I do feel sure that I will make swords
again; it is difficult to describe but I can
feel a building pressure to do so. I
cannot predict exactly when I will make swords
again but I am certain that it will occur sooner
rather than later.
I am not revealing all of this to appeal for
sympathy, assistance or donations or to make
excuses for my conduct; but rather to explain
where things stand and to scotch any rumors
before they percolate and spread. I do
need to appeal for further patience from those
that I owe work to; i will deal with outstanding
debts and other issues as rapidly as I
can. I apologize for the inevitable
inconvenience and difficulty that this will
cause; I made promises that I could not keep and
for this I am profoundly sorry.
As for the future I will need to make
fundamental changes to my business and the way
that I do things. I have had to make
significant adjustments to my life and those
will be reflected in the way I operate my
business. I cannot be sure that i can keep
artificial deadlines so the plan at this point
is to largely stop taking custom orders.
the consequences of making promises that I
cannot be certain of keeping are unacceptable to
all concerned. I will continue to work and
to sell the products of that work on my
website. This absolutely includes
swords.
This does means that it may be more difficult
for customers to get exactly what they
want. The trade-off is that the pieces
that I do offer will be without compromise; I
will no longer be 'building to price' or
arbitrarily limiting my creativity. I have
always been an artisan rather than an artist but
there is and will continue to be a greater
emphasis on 'art' in my work.
If you encounter any further rumors about me on
the internet please be so kind as to refer them
to this post. If you have any questions
feel free to ask them but bear in mind that I
may choose not to answer.
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