Planet Wifey loves when she is placed in controversial scenarios by yours truly!

You can take the girl out of the country, but, you can’t take the country out of the girl!

When I walk through the window-paned door at 1152 Broadway, Steve Costello is on his cell and flips a quick nod to let me know I should relax and chill until he breaks free.

Around the space there are neatly piled stacks of skate apparel and other products yet to be released, shelves for the boards ready to be wall-mounted, and at his workspace — one of three, rests a wooden skeleton piece I mistake for an early period lacrosse stick.

Steve finishes pacing around with the phone still cocked to his ear and asks, you like that? Naturally I respond with what is it?

He motions for me to hand the piece over and turns it so the concave side is facing out and angled towards the ground. It’s a splint, he tells me while positioning it along the full length of his leg and sliding one of his red and black Nike’s into the large open end at the bottom.

Limping around like a wounded soldier, Steve says, this thing is sick. Then he steps away from the splint and holds it like a fisherman who just hooked a 100-pound swordfish.

For Steve, the design appeal makes perfect sense. I love this thing. It’s made out of molded plywood. Like a skateboard.

The piece is also an Eames design — Charles and Ray Eames, which means Steve has landed a next-level find. When I ask him where he picked up the splint, Steve tells me that it was a gift, but that is not when he first laid eyes on it.

Originally, Steve saw a similar piece on display in a boutique while shopping, but it was not for sale. Later he started digging into the history and discovered that it was created during World War II by the Eameses.

Breaking out his own copy of Eames Design and flipping to the year 1943 like it was second nature, Steve lays down some clue about the leg splint, manufactured by the Evans Products, Molded Plywood Division. This included quote from Heilbrunn details what Steve summarized as the story behind the splint:

During World War II, the U.S. Navy called upon Charles and Ray Eames to create a lightweight, inexpensive leg splint. The resulting design is a highly sculptural yet functional device that could be mass-produced and, being modular, conveniently and inexpensively transported. Access to military technology and manufacturing facilities allowed the Eameses to perfect their technique for molding plywood, which they had been working on for several years. In its three-dimensional, biomorphic form, the leg splint suggests the Eames’ subsequent, highly influential plywood furniture designs. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

Today, the Eames Molded Plywood Splints are collectables. Well conditioned models of the same run as Steve’s, S2-1790, could potentially set you back a cool grand. Steve received his as a gift and it would be suspect on my part to think he has ever considered selling it.

We all have an insatiable desire to consume.

Steves consumption, inspired by design, compels his solid appreciation for this sliver of molded plywood and what it represents — a piece of creative art design history that keeps him rooted in the raw material of one of his most creative passions. Skateboarding.

Every time I visit OPEN, Joshua’s hands are perpetually covered in bike grease. When I see him, we dance through our customary social greeting which habitually begins with him saying, “Sorry man, my hands are dirty…”

The fact that Joshua’s hands are always grimy is comforting to me. His greasy hands are symbolic of Joshua’s creative passion for what he and Zack, both, hope to bring to the familial and collaborative space they have created with OPEN.

For Joshua’s hands, gloved in filth, hardened and sometimes scarred from a day spent repairing and building bikes, the grease represents his pencil and is the one tool that feeds [your] creativity and is so essential that without it [you] feel naked and unprepared (Tharp, The Creative Habit).

What is the pencil for your creative habit? For me, quite literally, it is a pencil. True to my hustle, it is called the perfect pencil. As a writer, my pencil helps capture the world around me through finished narratives, or by sharing the fractured elements of stories without a voice.

Where’s your pencil? What creative spark to your habit will it bring to keep your fire burning? I suspect that once you discover the tool, the only thing left to pursue is your passion. Like Joshua, with his hands perpetually covered in bike grease, this is one habit you will never have a need to apologize.

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OPEN Creative Habits was originally published at openbicycle.com. copyright © 2009, Do You KNOW Clarence?™ All rights reserved.

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