Interview with DaVinci by iCE Staff for iCE PACK 12/2002 Converted to ASCII text by RaD Man of ACiD Productions (www.acid.org) HTML version available at http://www.ice.org/interviews.php?interview=13 ߰ ۱ ۱ ۲ ۱ ۲ ܱ۲ ۲ ޲ ۱ ܲ ܲ ۲ ۱ ۲ ۲ ۱ kz۲ iCE: Tell us a bit about yourself. First name, age, hobbies, etc. DaVinci: My name is Sam, and I'm 50 years old. I have quite a few hobbies and interests, including graphics (of course), metal working and engraving, ham radio, music, photography, computers, and more. I played music professionally for nine years, and play bass and guitar, but my main axe is 5-string bluegrass banjo. I also teach banjo. iCE: How long have you been a member of iCE? DaVinci: I think I joined in 1998. That sounds about right. iCE: Where are you from? Have you lived anywhere else? DaVinci: I live in rural Louisiana and have lived in Michigan, Maryland, Florida, and Georgia. iCE: What do you do for a living? DaVinci: I'm a hand engraver by profession. I've been engraving longer than my iCE members have been alive ;) I also teach 6 one-week engraving classes a year in Kansas. When I'm not engraving here in my own studio or teaching classes, I'm probably at a jewelry show demonstrating engraving and diamond setting techniques. I've worked in Switzerland, China, Italy, Hong Kong, and in 2003 I'll be in Japan and Thailand as well as shows here in the USA. iCE: We understand you've had some success at that. You've had some of your works on the cover of magazines? DaVinci: In Feb. 1984 a set of guns I engraved were on the cover of American Rifleman magazine. My work's been in books and magazines for many years. I'm very fortunate to have studied under two of the world's best hand engravers. iCE: You played music professionally for 9 years? Can you tell us about that? DaVinci: My band was together for 9 years, and we started out playing hardcore traditional bluegrass music. Back in 1973 when we started, bluegrass was the rage and we had all the work we could take. Then it slowly faded from popularity and we changed gears and did country, progressive country, and even some cajun/zydeco music. I played banjo the first 4 years and electric bass the last 5 years we were together. Since we played in very popular clubs in New Orleans, I had the opportunity to jam with some interesting people. A couple of names I can drop are John Belushi, who sang with us every night for a week around 1975, and Peter Townsend of The Who. There are others, but those two are memorable. I got very serious with my engraving hobby and when the band parted ways in 1982, I began working full time as a hand engraver. I was "discovered" you might say, by a wealthy gun collector in New Orleans who liked my work and thought I had potential. He employed me for 7 years to engrave his personal gun collection. He sent me to Italy to study under the best engraver there, and I also studied under another engraver here in the USA who was considered one of the best in the world. My employer was a patron to the arts. He never demanded anything but my very best work, and I was never under any time constraints to complete jobs. I had the security of a weekly paycheck and complete artistic and creative freedom to develop my skills. In other words, I hit the engraver's lottery. I've been extremely fortunate, and I never take that for granted. iCE: You've done engraving work for kings and princes as well, right? DaVinci: No kings or princes. I did a job for the president of Turkey, and I've done work that's gone to famous people. I cater to advanced collectors who appreciate engraving as an art, and not just something that takes up space. iCE: Can you tell us anything about doing engraving? How do you generally plan it out, and what materials are used? How long does it take to do the job, and what makes one job more laborious than another? DaVinci: In a nutshell, engraving is simply using a small chisel called a graver. Traditionally, the graver is either pushed by hand or driven with small hammer called a chasing hammer. I engraved with hammer & chisel for many years, but now I use a pneumatic handpiece the propels the tool like a tiny jackhammer. It's still guided freehand and the graver itself is still the same. The length of time can be anywhere from a few minutes to a few months. Like graphics, it depends on the complexity of the design. Some of my higher-end gun jobs have taken a year to complete, while smaller jobs on custom knives may take a few weeks. Scroll designs go a bit faster than portraits and scenes, and inlaid gold slows down the process quite a lot. I also engrave jewelry. Everything from simple lettering tasks to complex designs done in deep, sculpted relief. However, I'm best known for the high-end type of work, and that's the bulk of my business. iCE: What training did you have before you started engraving? You said you learned from two of the world's best hand engravers - how did you get there, since I assume that's what set you up for the success you have found? DaVinci: I was self-taught prior to my engraving training. I've not had any art training of any kind. What little I do know was learned on-the-fly. Graphics are a great creative release for me, especially since I can work in color. That might sound odd, but as an engraver, color is not an option. We simply incise designs into metal. The only exception would be the addition of inlaid gold or silver. My first graphics were done with Windows Paint back when Windows 3.0 came out. From there I used a program called Tempra (something). Can't remember the name, but it was an incredible 256 colors! I fooled with that a bit, then discovered Autodesk 3D Studio for DOS. I did 3D animations for software companies... mostly spinning logos for the old DOS program spash screens. In those days that was considered some pretty spectacular stuff. Now days you can find shareware or freeware that does the same thing effortlessly. I tend to approach graphics with the same precision as my engraving. I like sharp, crisp detail. This is just my style and what I like best. I don't always achieve my goal, but I have fun trying. iCE: If you could be doing anything right now professionally, other than engraving, what would you do? DaVinci: That's a difficult question. I love my work as much as I love my hobbies. I could be content being a logo designer or something. It would be great to paint the fun stuff that you see on my website and get paid for it. I just paint what pleases me and was never concerned whether anyone else liked it or not. Apparently some don't because I have a collection of email from people telling me how much I suck, and that I'm not an artist, and blah blah. I just laugh it off and am amused by it. My work gets ripped off frequently, too. People are always emailing me telling me someone's ripped my artwork and modified it for use on their website. I get an average of 2 or 3 reports per month. Some have even removed my signature and one guy won contests with my work. I think some of the things I do lend themselves well to ripoffs, since I frequently do detailed frameworks which are then gutted and changed to suit the person taking them. Such is life I guess. SAUCE00Interview with DaVinci iCE Staff iCE Advertisements 20021231"P