davidrei
Member
A friend asked me to make a couple of snake skin pens for gifts (Sedona, diamondback rattler from BB) which cam out nicely. But being a unique individual, she also asked me to make an "ugly" pen for her personal use. Well, this was not quite enough for me to run with, so I asked her what kind of ugly she wanted:
Gaudy Ugly â€" e.g., a pen with multiple painted colors (under a nice finish) e.g., bright yellow, red, green
Ambiguously Ugly â€" A pen that when you look at it, you say, “well, maybe someone somewhere might like it†and you’re afraid to flat out call it ugly for fear of offending, even though it is clearly ugly.
Purposefully Ugly â€" e.g., I once made a pen with moss encased in clear plastic, ended up looking like a pen made from swamp water.
Poorly Made Ugly â€" One of questionable design quality with ridges & misaligned glue joints (e.g., a pen made by a 5 year old)
She decided on either purposefully ugly or ambiguously ugly. To that end, I made a "Frankenpen" out of multiple scraps lying around the garage. On the lower barrel, it has 7 type of wood: cocobolo, black palm, Honduran rosewood, dyed boxelder burl, amboyna burl, maple, birch (I think) and bocote. The upper barrel has the maple, birch, bocote and rosewood ends, but is mostly deer antler, with turquoise and iron pyrite inlays.
My question to the group: is this ugly enough? I think it's about half way between ambiguously and purposefully ugly, but I can't really tell.
Gaudy Ugly â€" e.g., a pen with multiple painted colors (under a nice finish) e.g., bright yellow, red, green
Ambiguously Ugly â€" A pen that when you look at it, you say, “well, maybe someone somewhere might like it†and you’re afraid to flat out call it ugly for fear of offending, even though it is clearly ugly.
Purposefully Ugly â€" e.g., I once made a pen with moss encased in clear plastic, ended up looking like a pen made from swamp water.
Poorly Made Ugly â€" One of questionable design quality with ridges & misaligned glue joints (e.g., a pen made by a 5 year old)
She decided on either purposefully ugly or ambiguously ugly. To that end, I made a "Frankenpen" out of multiple scraps lying around the garage. On the lower barrel, it has 7 type of wood: cocobolo, black palm, Honduran rosewood, dyed boxelder burl, amboyna burl, maple, birch (I think) and bocote. The upper barrel has the maple, birch, bocote and rosewood ends, but is mostly deer antler, with turquoise and iron pyrite inlays.
My question to the group: is this ugly enough? I think it's about half way between ambiguously and purposefully ugly, but I can't really tell.
]
