A few months ago a Tuscon-based artist named Kate McKinnon stumbled across my site and left a comment on one of my posts. The search term that led her to arrive here of all places, is probably something upon which it would be inappropriate to speculate. I was behaving in a manner completely out of character at the time, so apparently Kate got the profoundly incorrent impression that I’m a marginally non-reprehensible individual.

Vicki wearing the silver necklace Kate made for her. (Click to enlarge.)

I followed the link in her comment back to her website and found myself really enjoying the posts she puts up on her blog. Her writing is great, but I’ve also really been impressed with her frequency. Kate seems blessed (or cursed, perhaps) with more insights and observations on a daily basis than have occurred to me in the last several decades. If you’ve spent any time reading blogs on the web, I’m sure you’ve noticed that most people who post daily are either posting dreck or just putting up links to other sites. Kate writes almost every day, and always has something interesting to talk about.

See, Kate is a metalsmith, which is something I have a hard time getting my head around. The word ‘metalsmith’ to me, implies grim-faced bearded Dwarven blacksmiths, massive stone forges, pitted anvils, and immense hammers ringing deep in the fiery bowels of Khazad-dûm, pounding mithril into chain mail.

Kate doesn’t have a beard. As for the rest of it, your guess is as good as mine.

Fortunately you don’t have to understand a thing to appreciate it (or else all human males would be homosexual and the species would have died out a long time ago) and I really like Kate‘s creations a lot. You should go look at them. None of it is stuff that I could wear (until she starts selling mithril armor) but all of it practically exudes creativity. One piece in particular really struck me, so I contacted Kate about making something like it for Vicki. Christmas was approaching, the stars aligned, the planets converged, and everything came together in plenty of time for me to give my wife something really unique and interesting this year.

How cool is that?

- Ken