 “Last April, I found myself in
the beautiful Ozark mountains of Missouri on a Morel Mushroom “hunt”. It was
raining… and we stopped to find shelter under a downed cottonwood tree. This was the
time of year when deer seem to be more brazen since it’s turkey season and the deer
have nothing to fear. To my luck and delight we were suddenly surrounded by the most
magnificent mule deer I have ever seen. Two of them actually came up to us, and a friend
of mine named Earl, a decendant of the local Osage Indian tribe, told me to hold out my hand, and one of the wild deer fed from my palm!
Earl
said that the mule deer can sense a trusting “old soul” which is why he was so
friendly to me. I had never thought of myself as an “old soul” before, so this
really made my day!
Again,
I was so inspired by that moment, that I decided to create a knife in their honor. However I
didn’t know exactly how to make such a knife. Then, several days later Earl told me
he had a very special gift for me, and presented me with this beautiful leg bone of a mule
deer which he had found in a field of skunk grass several years before.
He
told me that there was as belief that if one was to discover the leg bone of the mule
deer, it was a sign from the spirits that your own journey would be fulfilled to your
wishes and dreams. He told me that this would be a perfect handle for such a knife. I had
never made a knife from the bone of a deer… so this was a great challenge.
I
went back to my studio and worked on this knife for longer than usual until I figured it
out, and thus “Journey and Dreams” came about. I made this knife with the hopes
that whomever buys it will find their own journey into life and dreams fulfilled." |
