Pens of Inspiration

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jttheclockman

jttheclockman

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I just wanted to point something out here for those that are new or have not realized the intent of this forum IAP Home - Photos - Pens of Inspiration Was a little disappointed when I went back to see if there was anything new here. By the way if you want to see some fantastic pens check it out for yourself. There are some nice new additions as well there too.

It all started when we had a few conversations about trying to get a Hall Of Fame forum set up to show case some of the elite pens ever shown on this site. The WOW pens. I am not going to go back and rehash this and if anyone is interested look it up doing a search here. But a member tried hard to compensate all the pros and cons sayers whenever this conversation came up. He went by the sign-on name of Spanx (Dale). I see he has not been on in a couple years and I hope all is well.

My concern is there are now people just uploading their pens to this site and one vendor actually posted his blanks. Not what this forum is about and hope people respect it for what it was intended. Yes they are nice pens but are common everybody makes pens. Post them in your albumn and if you want link your album in your signature when you make a posting. This is in no way a knock on the work but a reminder of what that specific forum started out as and was intended to be. Now if you find that over the top pen that has been shown here contact the maker and ask if they would consider entering it into that forum so that they can be archived for future generations to marvel at.

Thank you for being understanding.:smile::smile::smile:
 
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I just want to make sure I understand this John. First off, I've never seen this section on the site before so thanks for sharing. Let me ask a couple of simple questions. The "Pens of Inspiration" forum was intended to be a special place to show pens of beauty, craftsmanship or a pen that means something special to the maker. Is that assumption correct? Whereas the "Show off your pens" section is for everyday posting of peoples work they want to show off. Am I getting it right? I agree with your analogy about the pens of inspiration being a section for just that, pens of inspiration. Is there someone who moderates this section? Are there criteria that has to be met before a pen can be posted here? I agree, I don't think a picture of a pen blank should qualify to be in this section. Thanks John for shedding some light on this.
 
wolf creek knives said:
I just want to make sure I understand this John. First off, I've never seen this section on the site before so thanks for sharing. Let me ask a couple of simple questions. The "Pens of Inspiration" forum was intended to be a special place to show pens of beauty, craftsmanship or a pen that means something special to the maker. Is that assumption correct? Whereas the "Show off your pens" section is for everyday posting of peoples work they want to show off. Am I getting it right? I agree with your analogy about the pens of inspiration being a section for just that, pens of inspiration. Is there someone who moderates this section? Are there criteria that has to be met before a pen can be posted here? I agree, I don't think a picture of a pen blank should qualify to be in this section. Thanks John for shedding some light on this.
Click to expand...

Hello Tom

Yes there are some obscure forums here that do get overlooked when they do not get mentioned much and this is one of them. As I said there were some past attempts to try to get some place to store the most elite pens shown here on this site to keep as both archives and to give inspiration to those who want to strive for the best of the best. The cream of the crop as they say. It is not about the maker but the pen itself. It was brought up a few times by a couple members and I being one and tried to have it called a Hall of Fame forum. Now this took on so much controversy and partly because I am not well received here ( no secret)and the fact that members hate change. The thoughts can be read if you google a search here for the past threads on this. As I said I will not rehash this because it is a dead horse as they say. The big stumbling points were who has say what pens are worthy, one person may have a ton of pens in there and so on.

No there is no one in charge of this and this forum was basically set up by Spanx who I mentioned before. He tried to go back and pick some of the WOW pens or as I say Cream of the Crop pens shown in the SOYP forum. He did it with good intentions and was doing well. He too did not get the support behind him and eventually I see he has left the site a couple years ago. I hope he is OK and all is well but that does happen with many members they move on. I challenged the membership back then to go through the SOYP forum and pick out the best of the best and see if you could come up with 20 I think is the number I put on it back then. He took the challenge and it took off from there. As I said we could not get the support for this idea just as we have a hard time getting support for the Membership Card here. Things seem to stall but Mike has taken that project and ran with it and is doing well.

So this forum is basically a honor system type thing and that is fine but as I said there is a forum to show off your pens. Mostly these are pens that everyone here has made over the years and yes they are great to look at and as I said save to one's albumn to show at later dates too. We all love photo candy and that is what that forum is about show us what you made. But the Pens of Inspiration forum was suppose to be that special forum for that special not seen every day pen. Here is an example that should be in there.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/f18/pens-inspiration-144791/

Hope this clears things up and with so many new members here, bringing some of these forums up now and then shows them there is more to this site that gets overlooked. It is the best pen related turning forum ever. It will continue to grow as long as the membership wants it too.
 
I would like to see if it could try again. There have been some GREAT pens in the past that most people never see or have seen.

Here is an idea that would be shot down - but in a manner similar to hall of fame, a vote or suggestion on pens being inducted that are 3 years or 5 years old (in which the photos were shown on this forum 3 to 5 years ago) - in order to prevent arguments over Best, Very Good, Good of current pens. This would eliminate people getting their feelings hurt over this one being better than that one, or this one is just as good as that one. People do get their feelings hurt, and sometimes we see something we made as more beautiful than another simply because we made it. :biggrin: Time helps us see which ones really stand out.
 
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Hank I know you were also one of those in favor of trying to isolate some of the best of the best pens shown here. It was ashame that the tone took such a negative aspect when being discussed. But I believe my name had something to do with it so I will stay away from opening this up again but you have my support or anyone else who wants to pursue or improve on what we have or tried to have. So many great looking pens get lost and I believe it was Mark who was on occasion bringing a few back to be seen again by a newer generation along with the pens dedicated with our own collection (the IAP collection) Those are just the tip of the iceburg of the talent that past through this place and left their mark and continue to do so.:smile::smile:
 
John I am glad you explained this I had not looked at this section before and would not have figured out the meaning behind it. I think it is a good thing, a way of honoring the exceptional. It would give us a goal to shoot for as it encourages me when people comment or hit the like button when I post my work. If there could be some way of nominating by others then it would mean more and also some would never post there own work into it.
 
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