I began making chain-mail back in 1987, when it seemed to me that it was a dying art. There were pretty much only 7 weaves that were being used, with dozens of names for them. To most jewelers and artists, chain-mail seemed like a silly anachronistic form with little use, aside from designers like Paco Rabanne.
I first learned the basic weaves under Connie Gilbert, and then joined her and Cindy Simms at Chained Lynx. We opened a store in Evanston, IL sometime around 1990, and both went on to bigger and better things since then. When I moved to Canada a few years later, I started Northern Lynx. When it became obvious that I would need a corporation for the Mobius Ball patent (yes, I'm the one who created, named and patented it), I began Radical Lynx, at which point I discovered, to my shame, my lack of head for business.
One day, shortly after I began to make chain, Connie gave me a gift of chain-mail juggling cubes. They were a standard Oriental 4:1, in a 4x4x4 grid. I just loved them, but asked if she could make juggling balls. She said that it wasn't possible, aside from covering a ball in chain-mail. It was, she said, a puzzle for chain-mailers for a very long time. A couple of minutes later, I suggested a pattern, but she said it wouldn't work. A few minutes after that, she walked out of the room and went into the studio. And a few minutes after that, there was a scream. My suggestion had worked.
And that, dear Reader, was the beginning of my career in chain-mail.
It was at that point that Connie recognized that I had some skill in developing new weaves, and she encouraged me in that over the next few years. (More on those "new" weaves later.)
Since that time, while I still do fashion designs and jewelry, my main focus has been on art pieces, including a copy of Van Gogh's Sunflowers in chain-mail. (The full story on that later, too.)
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