You could sharpen your own pencils, but who would want to go to all the effort? Send them to David Rees of Artisanal Pencil Sharpening, and he'll whittle them to perfection and return them to you with the shavings and a certificate of authenticity:
Rees is also known for his political cartoon franchise called Get Your War On.
Link via Fast Company | Company Website | Rees' Website | Photo: Meredith Heuer/LA Times
This is how Rees' artisanal pencil sharpening works: You might send him your favorite pencil, but Rees more often selects and sharpens a classic No. 2 pencil for his clients, he promises, "carefully and lovingly." He slides the finished pencil's very sharp tip into a specially-sized segment of plastic tubing, then puts the whole pencil in a larger, firmer tube that looks like it belongs in a science experiment. Throw it at a wall, he says, and it won't break. The cost? $15.
Rees lives in New York's Hudson Valley, a region full of tiny vineyards and cheese makers and old-school butchers and bookbinders. It's a place where people take the time to create things by hand.
Rees is also known for his political cartoon franchise called Get Your War On.
Link via Fast Company | Company Website | Rees' Website | Photo: Meredith Heuer/LA Times
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Agreed; loved the political 'toons, even bought a couple of the books!
And he still gets the last laugh, as there are probably idiots who will actually spend money on this "service."
I learned to sharpen pencils from my great-uncle, a man who was perhaps the epitome of a steam-punk hero, he lived in a house with no electricity, he grew his own foods, kept chickens and a cow, repaired his grandfather clock with an escapement wheel he cut with scissors out of the bottom of a bean-can, and spent his working days as a draughtsman, drawing details of the wing-roots, and weapons fitments of supersonic aircraft.
He sharpened his pencils with an ancient, bone-handled clasp knife,which he kept scalpel-sharp, and refined the edge by honing it on a pad of "flour-paper".
That's artisanal pencil sharpening.
Real men sharpen their own.