Well-Read Life™

Nice girls finish first: the entrepreneur of Eglomisé Designs

If I’m Don Quixote, my friend Wayne Welch is Sancho Panza. As the two of us drove the hour and some west of Boston to visit Martha Demerjian at her company last summer, we drove right by. Twice.

“That couldn’t be it...could it?” I asked Wayne. But, finally, with both our GPS systems pointing to the spot, and a confirming phone call later, we perceived that big mansion of a building, all by itself up on a hill, was in fact, the headquarters and production facility of Eglomisé Designs.

The proprietor was even more of a surprise. An engagingly young-looking woman met us at the door, welcoming us, as if to her old family compound. How could this be the woman who started a company that was now almost 50 years old? It was disconcerting.

How many businesses that started in 1965 are with us today? And how many of those were started by a woman? When you realize the rarity of the answers, it goes a long way to understanding the rarity of Martha Demerjian. 

A few months ago, Martha returned the favor and visited our headquarters here in Delray Beach. After our upbeat business discussions, celebrating the early success of Levenger selling her classic collegiate gifts, Martha sat down in a comfortable leather chair beside our editor of Levenger Press, Mim Harrison, and recounted the days when Don Draper and Mad Men ruled the business world (or at least, thought they did).

Here is Mim’s report.

Trendspotters will tell you that more hotels these days are catering to women business travelers. Some are reserving entire floors just for women, while others are customizing rooms more for their needs.

But Martha Demerjian will tell you that she remembers being eyed suspiciously when, on a business trip, she checked into a hotel alone. (Where was her husband?) And that she was often the only businessperson on the plane not wearing a tie.

Neither fazed her. After all, it was 1965, and she had a company to run.

And so she has, ever since, run a company called Eglomisé Designs, of which Martha is sole owner. Like many American small-business success stories, it started with a small idea that grew into something more.

Funny thing, though—it wasn’t supposed to start at all.

Basement bohemian

“I wanted to be a bohemian, but I couldn’t go to Paris by myself because nice girls didn’t do that,” says Martha, with a wit and a way of speaking that instantly tell you she’s from Boston. She had majored in what nice girls did then—French literature—as a student at Brown University. Well, not quite. Brown wasn’t a co-educational institution then; Martha went to the women’s half of Brown, Pembroke.

After she graduated, she got a job marketing books, something she enjoyed. “I spent my childhood wandering around the Boston Public Library,” she says. “It was wonderful.”

When another job opened up at the company, Martha applied for it. You’re qualified for the job, they told her, but you can’t have it. You’re a woman.

“I was so angry, and back then I didn’t know why I was angry,” Martha says. “But that’s when I decided I didn’t want to work for someone else.”

Then you’ll have to sell those picture frames, her mother told her.

Martha had a self-described obsession with mirrored frames from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She had amassed hundreds of them, and they were lodged in her mother’s basement. (Breathes there a budding entrepreneur who hasn’t benefited from a basement or garage?) Now to find something to put in those frames to help sell them.

“I adored mirrors that had painting on them, so I decided to see if I could paint,” says Martha. Painting on the back of glass so that the picture shows through is a technique known in French as églomisé. Martha tried her hand at it, even though she says she’s no artist.

“I decided to do primitives,” she says. “It’s what you do if you can’t paint or draw.”

But she could paint well enough. And she could sell even better. She showed her wares to a local shop, which bought every painted mirror she had.

“I’d never sold anything directly to anyone before,” says Martha. “I liked it.”

In the big leagues

One day she came across a Harvard book cover with a shield on it. She wagered that if she painted that shield on framed glass, she could sell it across the river in Cambridge, home of Harvard. The shopkeeper in Harvard Square told her to paint one of the historic buildings on the campus instead.

She did, and the Harvard Square man immediately wanted the picture with the Harvard building in it. When a Dartmouth man saw it, he wanted one with a Dartmouth building in it. On went the light bulb.

“I realized I could do this for all the Ivy League schools,” says Martha.

And then some. Soon she had colleges and universities throughout Massachusetts. It was time to venture beyond the basement and out of her mother’s house (even though nice single girls lived at home in those days).

Martha got on a plane and started calling on prospective customers in other states. Her very first, the Marshall Field’s department store, canceled on her after her plane touched down in Chicago.

What should she do? She’d never been alone in a city other than the one she knew. Her parents already considered her, as Martha says, “a fallen woman.”

She came upon an Armenian church. “I’m Armenian, so I went inside,” says Martha. A priest was chatting with some people, and she joined them.

Among them was her future husband.

“He was the first man I met who actually was interested in my business,” says Martha. “We got married after eight dates, in that church.”

Married, and still solo

Given the times, that should have been the end of the business story for Martha, especially since she had two children after she married. But that’s not how this nice girl finished the story. She continued with her business. When she traveled, she took her children with her so she wouldn’t miss them so much. Her daughter was a seasoned (and weary) traveler by age 5.

The business succeeded despite Martha’s not having a business background. “I have good people working for me,” she says. “Some have been with me for twenty-five years.”

From applying paint on glass, the company has moved to digital prints of images on a variety of surfaces. Martha also moved her company in 1991 to a former Army hospital building outside of Boston, at Fort Devens, that she refurbished. Equipment, inventory and personnel are all under the same roof.

Today Eglomisé Designs remains a privately held company. Colleges and universities continue to be a core customer, although Martha has branched out into other markets, among them the legal and medical professions.

Her products are in a few catalogs, Levenger being one, but Martha is selective about which ones she approaches. “I don’t want to be in every store in town,” she says.

After all, nice girls are particular about the company they keep.

How about you, dear reader? Do you know of other successful women entrepreneurs like Martha? I’d love to hear about them if you do. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

—Steve

A century-old British tradition carries on at Levenger

When our older son, Cal, left for New York to begin his first real job after college, he took something from my closet. It wasn’t a tie or a coat or a hat. (More likely, those items are the butt of jokes by my sons.) It was a Tusting briefcase.

I didn’t mind. In fact, I had stashed two Tusting cases up on a shelf. I had used them both and worn them in a bit and thought my sons might like them when they set off in the world. I still remember starting out myself many years ago, very light in experience and confidence, so I know that carrying a well-made briefcase with a bit of millage on it can serve as a hopeful portent of success. It’s also a practical way to carry increased responsibilities, should they come your way.

My sons can’t remember when Levenger didn’t carry Tusting cases, because the two companies have been partners for the last 20 years. So it’s about time I shared with you a bit more of the story behind these bags so lovingly crafted in England, and show you some photos from the visit to the factory that Lori and I made in September.

Five generations strong

William Tusting is the senior member of the fifth generation of Tustings currently running the leather-goods company, which is located in the village of Lavendon, about an hour northwest of London. William works with younger brother Alistair and Alistair’s wife, Gillian. John Tusting, William and Alistair’s father, still comes to work most days, as he did the day Lori and I were visiting. John has a beaming, avuncular smile and a hearty handshake. His desk is at the end of a well-lit office and presides over all the other desks, much as I imagine dear old Fezziwig presided over his young charges in A Christmas Carol.

In 1875, when the company was founded, the focus was on tanning leather, an occupation that other Tusting cousins in the area still pursue. Our branch of the Tusting family has been “tanning, grading and trading” some of the world’s finest leathers for 130 years. About 30 years ago, the family started to focus on making fine leather bags, and that’s what we’ve been bringing to America these many years.

Just as fine food begins with the best ingredients, fine leather bags must begin with the best leathers. This isn’t merely paying a high price for their leathers, although the Tustings do. It’s knowing just what kinds of hide, measured by myriad different characteristics, are right for the application, and then sometimes taking those hides for special (and rather secretive) additional preparation before cutting and sewing.

The hides in our Cambridge collection originate from North American cattle. They are aniline drum dyed, which enhances the luster and intensity of the color and their longevity. While you can use a leather polish on these bags if you wish, you can also blissfully ignore them for decades and watch them improve with natural age and character.

Tusting adds to these bags brass fittings solid and stout, plus top-of-the-line zippers, made on the Continent by RiRi.

We work with Tusting to modify designs for the American market and frequently add some more internal features for the exclusive Tusting-Levenger bags (our “inside IQ”). But the bags remain simple, and thus adaptable to the changing stuff we carry over the years. Like so many art forms, these bags triumph from what is left out as much as what is put in.

There’ll always be a Tusting

While Tusting is a small manufacturer on a world basis, they are one of the largest in England, and one of the most respected. When you buy your Aston Martin and check off the matching leather luggage option, you get a Tusting bag.

In our exclusive partnership, we bring to the United States the best of the Tusting designs, which are expanding and changing each year. Not only do we have the classic bags we’ve been selling for almost a generation, but you’ll also find new bright colors that have been garnering press coverage in London in Vogue and Elle, among other trendsetting magazines. (One such magazine published a photo of Princess Kate carrying a Tusting duffel, which reportedly she stole from William.)

Over the years, Tusting family members have become not just trusted business partners but friends as well. William and his wife, Susan, came to ride Loop the Lake for Literacy last year, and will be back again for this year’s ride.

And I’ve enjoyed riding the English countryside behind the strong wheel of William, who told me after our last ride that I’d done “a proper job as a limpet.”

A limpet? said I.

Yes, said William. ”You know—those creatures that stick onto rocks by the seashore.”

Limpet or no, customers do tend to stick with their Tusting bags. As one customer said about his Cambridge Messenger Brief, “The best purchase I ever made 13 years ago and I still use it today.”

Do you have a Tusting-Levenger bag to call your own? I’d like to hear about it here, and encourage you to post your story on our website as a review as well, for the benefit of other customers yet to form bonds with their own cherished bags.

Charles Dickens’s ‘Brilliant Improvisation’: Behind the pages of A Christmas Carol

“My own, and only manuscript,” scrawled Charles Dickens on the final page of his handwritten draft. He was referring to his little story of 1843 that became the colossal hit, A Christmas Carol.

Now little Levenger Press brings readers the one and only full-color facsimile of these manuscript pages. We did so in partnership with The Morgan Library & Museum, which owns the manuscript. (If you’re in New York between now and February 12, 2012, go see the Morgan’s superb Dickens exhibit.)

What makes this facsimile extraordinary is the Morgan’s painstaking restoration of each page. As our friend Declan Kiely, Morgan curator and Dickens scholar, says, the result is as close as science can get to the pages looking exactly as they did when Dickens rushed them to his printer shortly before Christmas, 1843.

How do great thinkers and writers think? That’s what we try to reveal for readers in the facsimile editions we publish. The way Dickens wrote—not only stylistically but physically—reveals much about the maestro behind the masterpiece.

Come eavesdrop on our conversation with Declan and Levenger Press editor Mim Harrison, as Declan takes you deeper into the mind of Dickens.

—Steve

Levenger Press: Why will lovers of A Christmas Carol want to read this version of it—a kind of “Christmas Carol in the raw”? What do we gain by watching how the writer wrote?

Declan Kiely: A Christmas Carol is such an iconic story—it has been referred to as a “culture-text” for the world at large—and has been adapted so many times, that it is easy to lose sight of its origin. What readers gain by reading this story in manuscript is the excitement of seeing the first product of Dickens’s imagination, his first thoughts and second thoughts, the false starts and revisions, and the sheer toil of the literary mind at work. The manuscript is literally crammed with small and large-scale revisions that are vividly evocative of Dickens’s working methods. To see them is to witness at first-hand, and to be enthralled by, his fierce creative energy.

LP: Dickens wrote this story in just six weeks. How was he able to just dash off a classic?

DK: There was a popular misconception during Dickens’s lifetime, which continued for a surprisingly long time afterward, that he wrote easily and carelessly, that he was a writer with a facility rather than genius. It is quickly apparent, when looking at the manuscript, that this was not the case, and that Dickens wrote, as he told one correspondent, “with great care and pains (being passionately fond of my art, and thinking it worth any trouble).” I think that the original manuscript, inasmuch as it allows us to see how the writer wrote, deepens rather than dispels the essential mysteriousness of the creative process.

LP: Did Dickens’s other stories help him in writing this one?

DK: It is worthwhile to remember that for Dickens, A Christmas Carol was an experimental work of fiction. By 1843 he had, of course, been writing for several years, beginning with his Sketches by Boz, going on to write his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, followed quickly by Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, all published serially over many months. What he had never written before was a story that would be published in a single volume and that aimed to capitalize on the Christmas holiday market. The whole enterprise was, to a certain extent, like so much of Dickens’s early work, a brilliant improvisation and also consciously and necessarily opportunist in nature.

LP: What do Dickens’s strike-outs and changes reveal most compellingly to you?

DK: When Dickens sat down to write A Christmas Carol in October 1843 he was writing with his back against the wall, conscious of the clock ticking down to December 25, and knew that he couldn’t allow himself the same freedoms that a much more capacious, novel-length narrative permitted. So the manuscript reveals Dickens’s rigorous discipline and his sharpest wit. The story represents Dickens’s literary genius in its most concentrated form. His changes are indicative of an author consciously reining himself in, cutting off digressions—as he does on the very first page, when he decided against an extended meditation on the character of Hamlet in the interests of moving his story along at a brisker pace. A tight narrative was essential to his purpose, and so his revisions seek to achieve concision, and increase vividness and immediacy. A Christmas Carol is a lean book, there is no superfluity, and that’s why it can and has been so well adapted—initially for the stage and, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the big screen.

LP: How does this manuscript compare with other manuscripts of Dickens?

DK: There is more revision evident on each page of A Christmas Carol. As Dickens matured as an artist, he became more deliberate, writing in a slower and more deeply considered way. By the time he wrote his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend (the manuscript of which is also at the Morgan), his writing had shrunk in size, and many more revisions appear on every page. Indeed, the pages are so clotted that one early commentator wrote that “the fineness and closeness of writing are enough to render the most amiable of experienced printers temporarily insane.”

LP: So in other words, the better he got as a writer, the more he revised?

DK: Absolutely. Dickens said of his early writing that he did not know the source of his ideas and inspiration, that they came “ready made to the point of the pen.” He seems to have made no outline or plan for A Christmas Carol—at least, none survives. He certainly made no plan for his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which, like all of his subsequent novels, he composed serially as well as published serially. The same can be said for Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, so it was not until he came to write The Old Curiosity Shop that he began to write plans—or “mems,” as he called them—to guide his own progress from the story’s beginning until its end, which was published eighteen months later. Perhaps the reason he revised his earlier work less than his later work is because, as he told a friend, “the plot, the motive of the book, is always perfected in my brain for a long time before I take up my pen. I add a great deal to the original idea as I work on, but, as I always know the end from the beginning, I can safely commit my work in parts to the press.” It’s likely that this is true of A Christmas Carol: Dickens knew precisely the plot, characters, and themes of the story before he put pen to paper. The manuscript is fascinating because, following his revisions, we can see the ways in which Dickens improved upon his original conception as he shaped his narrative.

LP: Why was Dickens so keen on using good paper for something that would be transmuted to print?

DK: Dickens had very high standards in just about every aspect of his life. He was extremely orderly and fastidious. He could not write unless everything on his desk, and in his work space, was “just so.” That included his paper and ink. He kept a collection of carefully prepared goose quills that he shaped with his pen knife (which is where the term originated), so that he would not be distracted if he needed to change quills when writing. The manuscripts of his early novels survive in fragmentary form only, but as his writing developed it is clear that he took a closer interest in the preservation of his working papers. Anyone who wants their work to last chooses the best available writing materials, the finest tools for the job. Dickens was discerning in his selection of paper, using “superfine” cream-colored paper for A Christmas Carol, and black iron gall ink. Later in his career he switched to blue paper and blue ink, which dried more quickly.

LP: Do you think Dickens somehow knew there would be value in his “own and only manuscript”?

DK: As far as I know there is no other manuscript that Dickens pointedly annotated “my own and only manuscript.” This quite clearly suggests his own fondness for the story and his estimation of its value. He gave it to one of his oldest friends, Thomas Mitton, both as a token of close friendship and in gratitude for his financial and legal assistance. Today, A Christmas Carol is one of the most highly valued literary manuscripts, in both the materialistic and artistic senses, in the Morgan’s collection.

LP: What do we lose, in terms of understanding a writer’s creative process, now that we have keyboards instead of quills?

DK: The arrival of word processors has led to the disappearance of any evidence of creative process. Word processors were invented, after all, to facilitate the creation of seamless, sophisticated, professional-looking, “finished” documents that can be infinitely replicated. Even with typewritten texts it is possible to compare typed drafts, to follow the evolution of a work through the author’s literal cut-and-paste insertions, or revisions made by hand onto the completed typescript. But an electronic document, even when changes can be tracked, does not convey the same vivid sense of something hand-made, or allow the development of the work to be as easily traced.

Handwritten manuscripts have an indisputable uniqueness and a special aura because they are the closest we can now come to their creator, and represent the creative spirit. We have gained in efficiency and convenience but we have lost the personality of a handwritten text in which it is possible, in some cases, to gauge the speed of writing, the difficulties (or otherwise) involved in achieving a certain effect or particularly successful sentence or paragraph, or the emotional temperature of the author at the time of writing.

Computer-generated documents are impersonal, and completely mute in terms of what they can tell us of the struggles of composition. A handwritten manuscript tells the story of its composition in the same way that the age lines of the human face can reveal the story of a person’s life.

LP: What was the most surprising development in the Morgan’s restoration of the manuscript?

DK: When carrying out conservation treatment, as with any carefully controlled activity, the last thing one wants is surprises! So the treatment progressed very much as our very experienced conservators expected. I think it is true to say that the appearance of the treated manuscript exceeded all of our expectations—it looks much fresher and, overall, much better than any manuscript that has not been so extensively restored. The removal of the silk backing from each sheet, which was probably attached in the 1920s as a preservation measure, returned the manuscript to its original state; it is an exciting development, restoring its physical authenticity. The conservation treatment reaffirmed that the “silking” of the manuscript was an unnecessary act of preservation in this case – but that’s because Dickens chose such good quality paper for his writing.

LP: What’s the most striking difference between how the restored manuscript looks and how it had looked before it was cleaned?

DK: The manuscript of A Christmas Carol had acquired the patina of age but had become dull and a bit muddy-looking. The acidity of the iron gall ink was partly responsible for this, and one of the primary reasons for washing any manuscript written in iron gall ink is to de-acidify it and prevent any further deterioration. The result is that the paper color and brightness return to something much closer to its original color – cream, in this case— and the text becomes crisper and clearer. The paper’s texture is also restored, making it less brittle and more flexible, just as it was when Dickens took a sheet and began writing. What we see today, in Levenger’s facsimile edition of the manuscript, is as close as scientifically possible to the physical appearance of the manuscript when Dickens sent it to the printer at the start of December 1843.

And now to you, dear reader: Does seeing the author at work enhance your appreciation of that author’s work? I’d love to hear your comments. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Thai Pad Country

We make a point to visit all manufacturers of Levenger products, but for several years, our silk Thai Pad, those traditional Thai silk pillows handmade in Thailand, had been an exception. We always met with our supplier at their offices in Bangkok.

“Oh, they are made so very far away, in the country,” we were told when we asked about visiting the factory. “And there’s really nothing to see. Plus there are no hotels up there.”

But we’re insistent on this matter, for several reasons. First, we want to assure ourselves that the people making products for us and for you are working in safe conditions. Second, we almost always come away with ideas for how to improve our designs, as we understand what their strengths and limitations are. Finally, we want to get a feeling for the human beings, for how they live, for what their neighborhoods are like, their schools and their libraries.

So when my older son, Cal, was embarking on a job interviewing swing through Asia, I asked him to take the time to fly from Bangkok up to the remote area where our Thai pillows are made and let us know what he saw. Below is his report.

—Steve

The tiny village of Yasothon, Thailand, sits unobtrusively near the Cambodian border. Last May I journeyed there to learn more about the community that provides Levenger with these vibrantly colored silk pillows so many customers have come to love—the Thai Pad.

From the air, Yasothon is barely visible amid endless greenery. The town and its environs seem to be nothing more than a quilt of rice patties and verdant forest. Soon after touching down, I met Aoh, a pretty woman in her forties who runs the small trading company that helps Levenger source Thai pillows. After greeting each other with a bow and some pleasantries, we climbed into her truck and began the hour-long drive to the village where Thai Pads are born. The community I found there, and the circumstances of production, were like nothing I could have imagined.

On past trips to Levenger’s vendors, it had been customary to tour the factory with management before sitting down to talk. From the start I could see that this visit would be different. There was no factory to tour. There were no big machines to admire. Instead of a factory, there were only handsome two-story homes with wide verandas facing a well-worn dirt road. In place of machinery, there were small groups of women sitting together stitching silk panels together.

In the shade of one porch, six women sat on a low table, sewing and chatting. A couple of dogs dozed beneath them, and the sounds of a children’s television show could be heard inside the house. Although these women were making the silken pillows I recognized from the Levenger catalog, it was hard to imagine that their products would ever leave rural Yasothon, let alone cross the Pacific and reach American hands.

I had expected to see something industrial that day. I had expected to see sewing machines, at least. Instead, what I found in Yasothon was traditional and familial. These women work with their hands while their children play nearby. There is no need to choose between family and career. Both are located on the steps of their homes.

Women’s lovely work

After viewing production with Aoh and two of her young assistants, it was time for lunch. A selection of local dishes was placed before us on a low table, just like the one I had seen the women sitting on while they worked. There were no stools or chairs. Local tradition, I learned, is to sit on the table. After taking off my shoes, I joined Aoh and her assistants on the table. Over lunch I learned more about their village.

Tourists seldom visit Yasothon, Aoh told me. Local incomes and the local diet both depend upon the cultivation of rice. During the spring and autumn, women work in the rice fields alongside the men, but during the rainy summer months, when there is little agricultural work to do, they earn extra income by stitching and stuffing traditional Thai pillows.

For centuries the women of Yasothon have crafted vibrantly colored pillows and mattresses, and it is easy to see why they still make them today. The silken furniture makes even hardwood floors cozy and inviting. Local ties to this traditional product remain so strong that the town’s bus stop is sheltered by an oversized, brightly painted plaster “pillow.”

Serendipity, scaled down

It is a happy accident that Thailand’s traditional pillows make an ideal home for a hardcover book or tablet computer. At Levenger we discovered that a scaled-down version of Yasothon’s ancient pillows could support both your handheld device and your hands with comfort and grace.

Ours is a traditional product, made in the traditional way. There is no factory. There are no heavy machines. It is simply Thai silk, stitched into pillows by Thai hands.

From their hands to yours, this is the Thai Pad—ancient, elegant support for your modern device.

—Cal Leveen

 

 

From holding books to upholding literacy

While our Thai Pad has become a helpful tool for many of our customers, it’s also helped us launch a special arm of our Partnering for Good initiative called Upholding Literacy. Through our foundation, Levenger is contributing to an international literacy group, the International Reading Association, which reaches remote communities in Thailand such as Yasothon.

We’re making a similar contribution to a literacy group that supports outpost communities in India, where our first Fair Trade Federation product, the India Cloud Book Pillow, was handcrafted.

It’s one more way that Levenger (and by extension, our customers) can do good in the world, helping to support literacy-based program.

We’re searching for more such opportunities. If you know of artisan groups—in other countries or our own—whom we might be able to work with, I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

—Steve

The History You're Helping Us to Write

Something about the Fourth of July and its history of a once-fledgling country has me thinking about the history of a once-fledgling company called Levenger…

When Lori and I took our first orders for reading lamps back in 1987, I confess I wasn’t thinking much about a vision for our newly hatched company. Mostly I was worried about whether the lamps would get there in one piece. And if our customers would like them. And whether our tiny company would survive to grow out of our second bedroom in Belmont, Mass.

As it turned out, not all of the lamps did get there in one piece. But we took great care of our customers and listened hard. Listening to customers became not just a habit but a credo. (Happily, I get to talk to even more of you now, thanks to new social networks and your lovely old-fashioned letters and cards.) So much of what Levenger became is because of what you expected us to be.

Digging deep into DNA

What you’ve told us in the past couple years is that Levenger could be, and should be, a company that not only sells good products but does good deeds.

We heard it within ourselves, too. That’s why we’ve embraced Conscious Capitalism in ways that we feel will resonate with serious readers. This is the impetus behind our creating Partnering for Good products, as well as underwriting the National Book Foundation’s Innovations in Reading program. And these are just two of several initiatives we’re working on.

But programs and initiatives only work if their goals are part of a company’s DNA. That’s why I would like to share with you the renewed vision and values of Levenger. They represent the latest chapter in the history that you, our customer, continue to help us write.

These many years later, I still worry about whether your order gets to you in one piece. I want you to feel good about what you buy from Levenger. I also want you to feel you can trust the company you’re buying from to try to do some good in the world.

Keep talking to us. We’ll keep listening. And thanks for helping us write a history we can be proud of.

P.S. As always, I’d love to hear from you. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Well-Read Life meets Muscle Beach…Object of reflection: how 475 pounds of aluminum can get readers thinking

He is quite possibly the most impressive example of body building on Miami’s famed South Beach. An imposing six-foot-six and a crushing 475 pounds, the Wrestler stands silently, impassively—and imposingly—in the lobby of The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach’s wonderfully quirky  and quietly astonishing museum (“the Wolf,” for short).

Head-to-toe aluminum, sculpted by an American in 1929, the Wrestler looms as a symbol of modernism and America’s burgeoning industrial strength. He is the metal with intellectual mettle.

I first encountered the big guy 10 years ago and was instantly intimidated. But I was also intrigued. Here was Greek Olympian and geeky robot all welded into one. When I encountered him again, about a year ago, I saw my chance to share his mysterious and shiny aura with our customers. Both Cathy Leff, the museum’s visionary director, and Micky Wolfson, who literally is The Wolfsonian (it’s his collection), were enthusiastic about Levenger’s creating the Wrestler in miniature, as a mighty bookend.

But….just what is this creature, and why does he exert such a power? In excerpts of the interview that Mim Harrison, editor of Levenger Press, conducted with them, Cathy and Micky tell you the story of the Wrestler and the Wolf:

Levenger: What does the Wrestler symbolize for you?

Micky: It’s an example of American futurism due to a combination of artistry, engineering and a new material—aluminum.

Levenger: What drew you to the sculpture in terms of acquisition?

Micky: My colleague, Lea Nickless, fell into the Wrestler’s arms at the Modernism show held in New York’s Seventh Regiment Armory and was attracted by its power. This was in November 1990. By the following February, The Wolfsonian was the new owner of the Wrestler.

Levenger: Why is he a good fit for The Wolfsonian?

Cathy: He embodies many of the themes addressed by our collection. He was exhibited at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, and worlds’ fairs and expositions are well represented in The Wolfsonian collection. They were national and international encounters that brought together peoples and nations, and through these events, you got a pretty good sense of who had the political and economic power, where innovation was coming from, what new ideas might transform our world.

Levenger: Why does he resonate so strongly?

Cathy: The Wrestler is an expression of the promise of the machine age, a new material—aluminum—and the rising interest in sports and physical culture. So this lightweight heavyweight is emblematic of the time in which he was created and exhibited. Now he has amassed a new following as an icon at our museum—very fitting in the context of The Wolfsonian’s own interests and South Beach’s fascination with body culture.

Levenger: Is he man…or machine?

Micky: He is Machine Man.

Levenger: Lots of objects in The Wolfsonian are from times past—the candlestick phone, the propaganda posters. And yet the museum has a very modern vibe. How do the two work together?

Cathy: While our collection mostly dates from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, we try to look at objects through the lens of contemporary culture.  We are interested in promoting the study and appreciation of the persuasive power of art and design. So, while the objects and images in our collection derive from a certain period of time, the issues and concerns they address hopefully resonate with audiences today.

We live in a time when the ability to disseminate objects and images makes it important for us to understand that design both shapes and reflects all aspects of everyday life.

Levenger: The Wolfsonian’s sobriquet is “museum of thinkism.” How do you want people to think about art when they view the collection?

Cathy:  We merely want people to come prepared to think—about the objects that surround them, where they were made and how they were used, the powers or agendas that motivated their design, and how they played a role in changing society’s values and behavior.

Levenger: How have some visitors felt when they’ve met the Wrestler?

Micky: Pinned down.

Levenger: If the Wrestler asked you out on a date, Cathy, would you go?

Cathy: Why not! If he were capable of asking, I would definitely be capable of going. We already have intimate relationships with our machines—so this would not be so novel. And he is quite the hulk, no?

And now to you, dear reader: what object or design has influenced the way that you think about the world? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

The man who makes ideas happen(including a new line of Circa notebooks)

Scott Belsky is my kind of entrepreneur. He not only thinks up provocative ideas, like developing a professional online network for artists and other creatives. He also channels his ideas into results, as the Behance Network, so ably proves.

I met Scott a few years ago via a mutual friend at Cornell, where we both spent some years (mine were way before his). When I first entered his offices in Manhattan, I saw that gleam in his eye of an entrepreneur who’s figured out how to make his concept work. In Scott’s case, it was how to help creative people—those famously right-brain, all-over-the-map, idea-driven individuals—actually execute their ideas. His solution goes by the simple name of the Action Method.

Getting to 100 percent

“Every project in life can be reduced into three primary components,” Scott observes in his book Making Ideas Happen. The first is action steps (what to do next), the second is reference materials (what information to have available for the project), and the third is the all-important backburner items (what to defer until another time so that you’ll take that first step).

Scott’s Action Method is basically a way to deal with the other 99 percent of the Thomas Edison equation: the 99% perspiration it takes to implement the 1% inspiration. No surprise, then, that the99percent.com website is Scott’s, as is the annual conference by the same name that he hosts.

From concept to notebook, and more

Scott’s not only a method man; he’s a product guy. We had that in common as well: a belief in the power of well-designed objects to help people accomplish what’s important to them. A mutual customer led the way by taking some of Scott’s Action Method papers and Circa-punching them to create a DIY Behance/Levenger Circa notebook.

Scott and I know enough to listen to customers.  So we asked our design teams: what would the ideal Behance Action Method Levenger Circa notebook look like? What they came up with are notebooks Scott and I adore, and we hope you will as well. You’ll also find Action Method 3x5 cards and Action Method bound notebooks.

If you’re reading this blog before April 11, you may want to calendar a reminder to check our website then to see the new Circa Behance and Action Method notebooks. If you’re reading this blog after April 11, head to the Circa section of Levenger.com and you’re there.

Explore the Action Method online. Both Scott and I believe your peak productivity will be the right balance you find for yourself between electronic tools and the traditional technologies of pen and paper, which, as our collaboration witnesses, continue to evolve in exciting ways.

Dreamer, Doer, or Incrementalist?

It’s been great fun working with Scott on making this new product line happen. I’ve also learned much from our partnership and friendship. I’ve discovered, for instance, that creative organizations have not only Dreamers and Doers but also Incrementalists—those who both think it up and then act on it.

One of the innovators I most admire, Walt Disney, was all three. And organizations—especially those creatively driven and with an entrepreneurial streak—benefit from having all three types. As Scott says:

“There is no ideal category. The Doers, Dreamers, and Incrementalists all have their own strengths and limitations. However, once you consider which type you might be, you can leverage the forces around you—potential partnerships, organizational tools, and other resources—that can make all the difference.”

How about you, dear reader—are you a Doer, Dreamer, or Incrementalist? I’d love to hear how it affects the way that you work with ideas. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

From Japan to America, Family to Family to Family...

The disasters that decimated Japan are almost unfathomable. Yet the unimaginable becomes real when we discover the connections that many of us have to Japanese families.

At Levenger it is because of the finely crafted objects that come to us from Japan that we feel such a strong connection.

Japan is famous for its astonishingly sharp ceramic knives. All it took was one touch of that ceramic to make our Single Sheet Cutter, which we import from Japan and have sold these many years.

The Japanese have a rich tradition in calligraphy and a special love for fountain pens.   They make some of the world’s finest pens, including Sailor, which is known for its remarkably flexible gold nibs. Their venerable craftsmen make very fine points, cherished for Japanese Kanji, their language pictograms, and then make ultra-broad nibs—the ones they call the music nibs, and that delight note-card writers like me.

 The same company that makes popular disposable Pilot pens also makes the retractable nib fountain pens known as the Namiki Vanishing Points.

We were able to make contact with the Namiki/Pilot factory shortly after the earthquake and tsunami. All their employees were safe, and there was no damage to their factory. They were dealing with occasional power blackouts, a minor inconvenience in the face of such an enormous catastrophe.

We also know that the small family tannery that produces the hides for our popular Carezza leathers is a safe distance from the devastated Sendai. These hides travel from the tannery to another family business in China, where some of the world’s most skilled leather workers transform them into bags and wallets so soft to the touch, and yet so durable and long-lasting. These leather goods then travel across the ocean to a third family business, Levenger, where they arrive at our loading docks in Memphis.

  Somehow the global economy becomes much more personal when you know some of the families that make these businesses what they are.

Our family—the Levenger family—was lucky, in that all of the people in Japan we know and are honored to work with are safe. We hope the same is true for any family, friends, or colleagues that you know there as well.

We are all more connected than we know.

Partnering for Good with Levenger Products

At Levenger we express our support of lifelong learning mainly through the products we create and sell. These products are designed to be helpful, and sometimes inspirational, to people who are pursuing their professional and avocational work involving reading, writing and thinking.

We also support lifelong learning through the financial support of the Levenger Foundation, which provides small but important grants directly to libraries, literacy groups and the National Book Foundation.

And happily, we also support lifelong learning by combining these two approaches. We do this by partnering with libraries, museums and other institutions to create products from their collections and paying them a portion of the proceeds. We call it Partnering for Good. It’s part of a movement today generally described as Conscious Capitalism.

In the last twenty years, social good has been accomplished by profit-making companies (beyond the normal good of creating jobs and advancing the economy). Companies like The Grameen Bank, The Body Shop in the UK, and Patagonia and Whole Foods in the US have demonstrated on a large scale how company profits and social profits can be mutually reinforcing. In our small way, Levenger has been doing similar things.

On the video below is a gallery of some of the products we've created with nonprofit institutions since our first partnership with The New York Public Library in 1993. Perhaps you own one of these products. That makes you a partner in our Partnering for Good—you’ve already helped lifelong learning more than you may know.

Since Partnering for Good began, Levenger has paid more than $160,000 in earned contributions to nonprofit institutions.

As always, we're interested in hearing of more institutions in the United States and worldwide that would like to partner with Levenger in such fashion. We would consider it a favor if you'd make an introduction.

Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

With best wishes,

Steve

Click on the video below:

In 1993, just six years after our start, Levenger partnered with The New York Public Library to reproduce the handsome brass desk lamps in its famed reading room. Levenger sold the lamps and paid a royalty to the library. Since that first lamp, we've worked with many institutions to create other equally enlightened products.

Levenger Toy Story 2: for ages 3 and up (and up and up)

“Get back to the presents,” instructs the young lad to the memory-keeper and narrator in Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. There were useful presents and some not so in Thomas’s charming recollection of his childhood holidays.

At Levenger, we offer only useful presents—and this is the first holiday season ever where we bring you educational games and toys. But while our toys instruct, they also beguile, beckoning both children and grownups to join in the fun. And that’s the real magic behind our selection. They’re a chance to trade Wii for we and bring the generations together. How very useful indeed.

Have a three-year-old, a tween, a teenager on your list? Our merchants have some suggestions for you.

For the littlest readers (ages 3+). Endearing wooden blocks in their own pull wagon spell F-U-N with A-B-Cs. They’re lovingly made by a family-owned American business, passed down from father to son. Instant heirloom: we’ll personalize the wagon.

More fathers and sons: it was Frank Lloyd Wright’s son John who invented Lincoln Logs,  and they still lure curious little hands. So do seemingly simple wooden blocks and marbles when they become a European-style marble run.

Young readers need places and spaces to call their own. Why not give them their own, kid-sized hideaway reading tent, bookcase or desk?

Ideal for the smarty-pants (6+).   A simple game of matching colors and shapes is smarter than it seems. Qwirkle has earned a Mensa award.  

Calling all strategy meisters (8+). Get the tweens on your list thinking about strategic thinking. Eight is the magic age to begin playing games that involve strategy. All three of these games—Dao, Quantumino and Monumental—have “strategy” in their names. These are excellent opportunities for bringing in other-generation perspectives. The kids might even think you’re smarter than you seem. 

Best in geek and green. Snap Circuits held every guy at Levenger in thrall, and quite a few of the women as well. All those cool ways to make a doorbell work and a light switch go on! (And all safely battery-powered.) From battery power to solar and wind power—these are two of several eco explorations your favorite environmentalist can embark on with the Power House Science Kit.

The families that play together.  We culled the time-tested and traditional for what we think are some of the best of the classics: Scrabble in a deluxe edition, Wooden Dominoes and our own Crossword Dice, and our game-room-in-a-box. Checkers, chess, backgammon, cribbage, cards—there’s a reason why these nostalgic names and games are still around. 

For train buffs and puzzle nuts.  If the very words Lionel Train Set make your pulse beat a little faster for a time when life was slower, come aboard this Christmas model.

And for puzzle lovers, our exclusive woodcut puzzle takes a page from the Bodleian Library’s medieval manuscripts and Alexander the Great. The whimsies are sure to seduce. These are the puzzle pieces shaped liked the dragons and angels and knights on grand horses in the picture. 

Has this gift list helped yours? I do hope so. Let me know if there are other toys and games that you would recommend—both those in our selection and those  that you wish were. Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments.)

By the way, all of our toys and games come with a message for the grownups: be sure to succumb to the joy of childhood wonder this holiday. As Dylan Thomas knew so well, it’s the stuff of happy memory.

P.S. Mim Harrison, the editor of Levenger Press, collaborated with me on this blog.