Obsessions are strange. One day you're going about your life, all of your Priorities and Wants in relative order. And then, BOOM. You own something ridiculous, your thoughts are re-ordered, you think about chess in the shower or Her when you make coffee. You consider flight school or running a marathon or becoming a farmer.
Our latest obsession is the Bates Box.
The Bates Boxes were manufactured in the mid 1920s, and are beautiful examples of craftsmanship and ingenuity. They're essentially an early, art deco rolodex, and a very cool system of internal gears help to smoothly move the list of phone numbers.
Bates Manufacturing made a lot of office equipment and was best known for its sequential numbering devices used on legal submissions. But these little boxes have grabbed my imagination. Stripping them down reveals beautiful steel underneath, and replacing 80-year old phone numbers with poetry is my way of making them new again.
Fun fact: Thomas Edison's company owned Bates Manufacturing for a while.
We're obsessed, and have downloaded the patents on variations and put in research requests on related companies. There's no reason for it, no purpose. Just ... curiosity and focus.
Obsession.
