I had been curious as to what the significance of the name of the line meant, and in googling it I discovered a past interview with you in which you revealed the origin of the name. Perhaps you could describe a bit, what it was exactly that struck you about the passage (from Anatole Broyard's "Kafka was the Rage") ?

There's a good amount of synchronicity involved in that. Broyard describes his musings about his new surroundings having moved from Brooklyn to the West Village. I practically had just moved to the West Village from Bushwick when I started reading the book. I sat for a few days at Joe's coffee shop on Waverly and finished it. He goes on to describe the set of social outlaws that made up the neighborhood. Folks with, as he put it, "a flaw in their past, some kind of unhealthiness, even a hint of insanity." Like a new family made up of individuals seeking self-redemption with which he could commiserate and remake himself –- when I arrived I was instantly surrounded by people with either a gleam of crazy-eyed hope or covered in a decrepit gray veil of surrender.

astounding quality to have nowadays; as it is a stark contrast to the mass produced "must-have" accessories flooding the current marketplace.  With the BSPS collection there is an obvious connection between object in artist.  Do  you feel people respond to that?

I went out on a limb on this one. Maybe its a sign of maturity or a fear of death, but I felt a need to take part in nearly forgotten arts and ally myself with timeless subjects and techniques in a contemporary manner to get back down to earth and out of the computer.

Just a back to basics approach with an artful twist and respect to American heritage, scrimshaw is one of the first truly American crafts. And, to my surprise, people sense this. Even if they dont know that its nearly extinct ivory from 1920's piano keys or that it takes days to engrave and make each complete piece, or my personal motive for it all, they feel somethings different. Materials speak, and so does craftsmanship.

The techniques you use are incredibly detail oriented, like scrimshaw.  How did you learn these?

When I started doing this I hadnt even seen a well crafted piece of scrimshaw. This stuff is very scarce. As a matter of fact, one day real scrimshaw (on ivory and whale bone) will all together be gone since it illegal to harvest the materials. But I pulled whatever little bits and pieces of know-how I could find from the library, internet and bookshops around town and just started to practice. Its all in the doing. It took me two years to feel comfortable with it, and it keeps evolving. I'm just now seeing how I'm developing my own style and marks. If you bought something from me a year ago and look at a similar design done today you'll see a huge difference.

Sometimes I wish I'd had a mentor. I ran across a book on scrimshaw recently and realized that we all come to the same practical conclusions, had I known someone with experience things would have moved a bit faster. Still, scrimshanders have their preferences. In my case, I choose to avoid powered tools. I like the delicate quality of tapering fluid lines and the tiny dots a little sewing needle makes. But, I obsess...

What other artistic projects, if any , do you work on?

I'm trained as a painter and prior to becoming an art director aspired to doing only that. Maybe Ill start that up again when I get a bigger place to make a good mess in. I draw on a daily basis. Lately I'm very interested in creating objects that have a singular and very personal purpose aside from the physically practical or any adornment. Is that vague enough? No sex toys, something else. You might feel some of that in the pieces I made for THECAST recently. I am actively working with the founders of the bar Death & Company on what I think will be a revival in finely designed cocktail tools. Tall order, but I'm on it.

Who are some of your favorite authors and artists?

Herman Hesse, Cesar Vallejo, King Solomon, Joseph Campbell, lots of reference and picture books, the internet, the abstract expressionists, the romantics and pre-Rafaelites, Barney, Violette...too many to list, I just enjoy art.