Re-Thinking Knives as Functional Art

Since I had the bug to fiddle around with customizing knives last week, here's a look at the one we commissioned at BLADE, the knife magazine I work for.

We do one of these every year to mark the BLADE Show each June in Atlanta. It's the world's premier knife show, in my totally biased opinion (BLADE owns the show). Knife makers and collectors fly in from all over the world to buy and sell knives. And I don't mean the junky knockoffs you can pick up at a gas station. I'm talking about functional art, with some knives fetching as much as $100,000 or more.

Our commemorative CRKT Tighe Rade is just a hair south of those figures, available exclusively at ShopBlade.com for $50. It's something fun for knife collectors, and it's always a treat to watch these blade babies sell out fast.

Thinking of knives as commemoratives brings me back to getting married, oddly enough. I gave each of my groomsmen a Kershaw Leek (maybe that's why that knife made it into Weapons for Writers).

None of that Things Remembered mall knife stuff for me, thank you very much. I wanted to give them the real deal. That it was an assisted opening knife probably scared the hell out of them the first time the blade popped open. But maybe that's what I was going for in the first place.

At some point in my life, I'd like to commission a true custom knife. One made from scrap metal and whatever gets swept up in the garage, then forged into something unique. I've been bit by that bug for a long while now. It's probably why I gave the protagonist in the novel I'm working on a knife made from a lawnmower blade.

The point here is that knives can be a lot more than sharp things waiting to cause an injury. They can rise above mere tools and become something more meaningful. If I have any regrets about Weapons for Writers, it's that I didn't pursue that point. Honestly, there wasn't space for anything but practical information.

I hope in the process of explaining a bit about knives, readers are able to pick up on my intentions. I don't want anyone to read Weapons for Writers for tips on using knives to murder people. I want them to start seeing the features that make knives art. The way the blade flows into the handle. The contours of the steel. The detailed patterns. The balance in the hand. The history. The "spirit" of the knife, as it's called, that communicates through the design. And above all, the knowledge that all of this started as a formless piece of metal until the right person came along to work it into something more.

Just something chew on. I'll leave you with some more pics that demonstrate what I mean. Each was made by hand. These are from Best Custom Knives, a digital book published by BLADE.

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* This last one is made from solid gold. Believe it.

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