Post by Woody Williams on Feb 6, 2010 10:28:01 GMT -5
High-caliber engraving art
Local (Evansville) artisan achieves renown by making weaponry a thing of beauty
Although retired as a jewelry engraver, Dubber spends his time creating firearm masterpieces for gun enthusiasts around the world.
The Autry National Center's Museum of the American West in Los Angeles scoured collections from across the country to gather ornately engraved guns once owned by Gen. George Custer, Annie Oakley, "Wild" Bill Hickok and for other decorated weapons.
Those items and more will be featured in "Pistols: Dazzling Firearms," a show opening today at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis.
Curators at the Eiteljorg made a call to Evansville to find a world-renowned weapons engraver to demonstrate the art as part of the exhibition.
Mike Dubber — one of the nation's leading master engravers of pistols, shotguns and rifles — will present demonstrations at the Eiteljorg Museum on select weekends between Feb. 20 and April 18.
The setting will be more public, but the work will be the same as he's done in a studio in his home over the last four decades, creating intricately cut, sculpted, inlaid and bejeweled weapons for collectors, celebrities and even royalty.
Dubber has created firearm and jewelry engravings for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Spain's King Juan Carlos, Pope John Paul II and actress Bo Derek, among others.
Using hand-pushed, hammer-guided and precision pneumatic knives, he's cut script, scrolled flourishes and sculpted portraits of humans and animals. He also etched detailed relief images of buildings, objects and emblematic symbols into the side plates, loading gates, back straps, trigger guards, butt plates, cylinders and barrels of all kinds of weapons.
He's pressed and sculpted gold and platinum inlays and set amethyst and diamonds into guns intended to function more as art than weaponry.
All the art reflects history, personal accomplishments or significant elements for the client, he said.
"Every gun kind of tells a story. It's not just redundant art and scrolls," Dubber said.
Sometimes, the work is so detailed he needs jewelers' magnifiers or even a microscope to see what he's doing. It's painstaking work that can take months, costing clients up to $20,000 a gun, Dubber said during a recent interview in his teaching studio in a room in the warehouse of Top Spot, his family's outdoor sports and bicycle store on Green River Road.
At 67, he's among an elite group of arms engravers in the nation.
Roger Bleile identified Dubber as such in "American Engravers," a large, color illustrated 1980 book featuring the country's leading arms engravers.
Dubber went on to become a founding member and president of the Firearms Engravers Guild of America. And he's an award-winning artist who's been certified master engraver by the guild as well as by Colt, the venerable American firearms manufacturer.
Dubber's commissions have included industry guns for Colt in the United States as well as Holland and James Purdey and Sons in London. He's also taught engraving to students in Italy and Belgium in classes presented by the Glendo Corp. of Emporia, Kan., a leading manufacturer of modern pneumatic engraving equipment.
The 1961 Reitz High School graduate got a master's degree in art from Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Ind., before returning to Evansville to teach, first at Harrison High School and then Bosse High School in the late 1960s.
At the suggestion of a friend, he decided to try engraving as a hobby around 1967. He got a few tools, did some rudimentary reading and started copying pictures of the work of others, mainly from Europe, where master engravers kept their skills secret, revealed only to apprentices who worked for years to become journeymen and eventually masters themselves.
It was the same with many of the artisans who came to the United States to work.
"They were European guild engravers who held their craft to themselves — they did not share," he said.
Dubber credits his own art background, some work with jewelry and his perseverance for taking him forward. He left the school corporation to work for other companies, including Gem Craft Jewelers and, later, Brinker's, where he continued working until last year.
Throughout that time Dubber's engraved pistols, shotguns and rifles were winning him prestigious awards and high-profile commissions.
Unlike the European guild engravers, Dubber is happy to share his knowledge with others. He figures he's worked with about 350 students in the United States and Europe.
Students in his private studio usually come for a week's intensive session. He's had one student from Canada, he noted, "and I am going to have one this year from Australia
ABOVE: "The Gambler," a creation by Master Engraver Michael Dubber of Evansville, is a Sheriff's Model Colt .44-40. The short-barreled model was meant to be concealed and was popular with shopkeepers.
A Lakota Sioux warrior in relief is inlaid in 24-karat gold on the recoil shield of "Tatonka," a Colt .45 that won Michael Dubber of Evansville the Engravers Choice Award of Merit at the Firearms Engravers Guild of America competition in Reno, Nev., in January.
The 24-karat gold inlaid scene of an American Plains Indian using a wolf's pelt as camouflage, designed by Dubber, adorns the barrel of "Tatonka," a Colt .45 handgun.
A gold inlaid Royal Flush on the recoil shield of "The Gambler" is but one of the gambling themes on this 2008 creation by Master Engraver Michael Dubber. The gun, a Colt Sheriff's model .44-. 40 caliber pistol, won Best of Show in the 2008 Colt Collectors Association competition.
"Tatonka" is a Colt .45 handgun was created with the theme of the American Plains Indian and the bison in mind. The grip is made of Indian elk and the French gray metal is inlaid with 24-carat gold and platinum hunting scenes and icons
A bison relief in gold and platinum in inlaid on the frame of "Tatonka," a Colt .45 that won the "Engravers Choice Award of Merit" at the Firearms Engravers Guild of America in 2010.
www.courierpress.com/news/2010/feb/05/high-caliber-engraving-art/
Local (Evansville) artisan achieves renown by making weaponry a thing of beauty
Although retired as a jewelry engraver, Dubber spends his time creating firearm masterpieces for gun enthusiasts around the world.The Autry National Center's Museum of the American West in Los Angeles scoured collections from across the country to gather ornately engraved guns once owned by Gen. George Custer, Annie Oakley, "Wild" Bill Hickok and for other decorated weapons.
Those items and more will be featured in "Pistols: Dazzling Firearms," a show opening today at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis.
Curators at the Eiteljorg made a call to Evansville to find a world-renowned weapons engraver to demonstrate the art as part of the exhibition.
Mike Dubber — one of the nation's leading master engravers of pistols, shotguns and rifles — will present demonstrations at the Eiteljorg Museum on select weekends between Feb. 20 and April 18.
The setting will be more public, but the work will be the same as he's done in a studio in his home over the last four decades, creating intricately cut, sculpted, inlaid and bejeweled weapons for collectors, celebrities and even royalty.
Dubber has created firearm and jewelry engravings for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Spain's King Juan Carlos, Pope John Paul II and actress Bo Derek, among others.
Using hand-pushed, hammer-guided and precision pneumatic knives, he's cut script, scrolled flourishes and sculpted portraits of humans and animals. He also etched detailed relief images of buildings, objects and emblematic symbols into the side plates, loading gates, back straps, trigger guards, butt plates, cylinders and barrels of all kinds of weapons.
He's pressed and sculpted gold and platinum inlays and set amethyst and diamonds into guns intended to function more as art than weaponry.
All the art reflects history, personal accomplishments or significant elements for the client, he said.
"Every gun kind of tells a story. It's not just redundant art and scrolls," Dubber said.
Sometimes, the work is so detailed he needs jewelers' magnifiers or even a microscope to see what he's doing. It's painstaking work that can take months, costing clients up to $20,000 a gun, Dubber said during a recent interview in his teaching studio in a room in the warehouse of Top Spot, his family's outdoor sports and bicycle store on Green River Road.
At 67, he's among an elite group of arms engravers in the nation.
Roger Bleile identified Dubber as such in "American Engravers," a large, color illustrated 1980 book featuring the country's leading arms engravers.
Dubber went on to become a founding member and president of the Firearms Engravers Guild of America. And he's an award-winning artist who's been certified master engraver by the guild as well as by Colt, the venerable American firearms manufacturer.
Dubber's commissions have included industry guns for Colt in the United States as well as Holland and James Purdey and Sons in London. He's also taught engraving to students in Italy and Belgium in classes presented by the Glendo Corp. of Emporia, Kan., a leading manufacturer of modern pneumatic engraving equipment.
The 1961 Reitz High School graduate got a master's degree in art from Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Ind., before returning to Evansville to teach, first at Harrison High School and then Bosse High School in the late 1960s.
At the suggestion of a friend, he decided to try engraving as a hobby around 1967. He got a few tools, did some rudimentary reading and started copying pictures of the work of others, mainly from Europe, where master engravers kept their skills secret, revealed only to apprentices who worked for years to become journeymen and eventually masters themselves.
It was the same with many of the artisans who came to the United States to work.
"They were European guild engravers who held their craft to themselves — they did not share," he said.
Dubber credits his own art background, some work with jewelry and his perseverance for taking him forward. He left the school corporation to work for other companies, including Gem Craft Jewelers and, later, Brinker's, where he continued working until last year.
Throughout that time Dubber's engraved pistols, shotguns and rifles were winning him prestigious awards and high-profile commissions.
Unlike the European guild engravers, Dubber is happy to share his knowledge with others. He figures he's worked with about 350 students in the United States and Europe.
Students in his private studio usually come for a week's intensive session. He's had one student from Canada, he noted, "and I am going to have one this year from Australia
ABOVE: "The Gambler," a creation by Master Engraver Michael Dubber of Evansville, is a Sheriff's Model Colt .44-40. The short-barreled model was meant to be concealed and was popular with shopkeepers. A Lakota Sioux warrior in relief is inlaid in 24-karat gold on the recoil shield of "Tatonka," a Colt .45 that won Michael Dubber of Evansville the Engravers Choice Award of Merit at the Firearms Engravers Guild of America competition in Reno, Nev., in January. The 24-karat gold inlaid scene of an American Plains Indian using a wolf's pelt as camouflage, designed by Dubber, adorns the barrel of "Tatonka," a Colt .45 handgun. A gold inlaid Royal Flush on the recoil shield of "The Gambler" is but one of the gambling themes on this 2008 creation by Master Engraver Michael Dubber. The gun, a Colt Sheriff's model .44-. 40 caliber pistol, won Best of Show in the 2008 Colt Collectors Association competition. "Tatonka" is a Colt .45 handgun was created with the theme of the American Plains Indian and the bison in mind. The grip is made of Indian elk and the French gray metal is inlaid with 24-carat gold and platinum hunting scenes and icons A bison relief in gold and platinum in inlaid on the frame of "Tatonka," a Colt .45 that won the "Engravers Choice Award of Merit" at the Firearms Engravers Guild of America in 2010.www.courierpress.com/news/2010/feb/05/high-caliber-engraving-art/
