My name is Maigurs Knets.
Pronounced as migurs ("g" as in "Gallup") knets ("k" is not silent).
I have born on January 11, 1962 in the City of Ventspils, Republic of Latvia. However, I spent all of my childhood in the smallest City in Latvia called Piltene, with population of 1000... one can only imagine what that meant to be to a little boy like me... lots of supervision from everyone and lots of trouble from everyone therefore also...
As soon as I could figure out of what a main purpose of the pencil and clay was... I knew that I wanted to draw and sculpt...
My passions in my early years were art, zoology/biology (there was no animal alive which I could not name in Latin) and love for running.
But in these early years of my youth I suspended my artistic developement and let my career in biology go away completely and devoted myself fully to Track and Field Athletics running middle distances and so instead - a mile and half mile.
In 1985 I left my professional career in Track and Field Athletics and finally devoted myself fully to the life of art and artistic developement. In 1985 I entered College of Applied Decorative Arts and Fine Craft of City of Liepaja, Latvia. In 1989 I graduated College with degree in antique furniture restoration and with degree in sculpting and wood carving. Now, when I'm almost 50 and I'm looking back to all of my 2600 some weeks and 18000 days of my life, I consider these four years (208 weeks and 1500 days) in Art College as the best years/time of my life this far.
In 1990 I immigrated to US, where I live permanently ever since... and as far as I can see ahead there is no doubt in my mind that I will also end my life here...
Coming to America was too much of a new experience to me to just immediately jump in into the world of Fine Craft Art - as a young college boy I was not ready... But my craftsmanship skills were sufficient to join American work force therefore by becoming a model maker for Hobby, Toy and Industrial Design industries;... and thus making precise scale models and first hand scale prototypes has been my bread and butter for last 20 years at least or so....
In November of 2010 I quit American work force and became fully self employed by making smoking pipes (similar to little functional fine scale models which I was so use to make in the years spent in the work force...) full time. Free time on a side also gave me the opportunity to revisit my old art college and my fresh current dreams in the area of Fine Craft Art and to start to develop my own first artistically imaginative fine craft pieces of art in wood. I love to develop difficult, hard to understand, complex jigs and technical setups/set up pieces, which when implemented, make my work ten times easier and simpler to do at the end.
My fate in Creator of time-space-matter-light continuum Jesus Christ can't be separated from me - it is embedded so deeply and permanently into me that if it goes down... it goes down with me; this spiritual relationship with Him on a daily basis is what directly affects and dictates my work/life ethics and rest of the purpose of what I'm making or I'm doing. When I work I work like in the presence of the Creator - I'm obligated thus to do my best and put in my best effort and quality therefore in things I make... would it be fancy smoking pipe or tiny little flower, which no one will ever buy nor will ever know... that it even existed...
My hobbies are simple (to me) - since early years and thru the high school I was deeply interested in biology and physics. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted a career in zoology/biology/physics, but for a certain reasons of my own and deep disappointments of my own, due to the lack of any supporting proof and evidence to the material I was learning, I had to let it go away completely then. But today - I love to study basics of quantum mechanics and physics of immortality - I love to search after the secrets of this digitally simulated holographic time-space continuum vapor... and find out of how this Vapor can be so Cool and Real... I'm also deeply interested in financial markets and trend dynamics of these markets - since all this stuff is very closely related...
I love to observe God's created order, design, information, symmetry, beauty, hidden secrets of... spaces and hyper spaces (and what's in it)... and how He created it all ex nihilo through specific expression of His speech by announcing word full of informational dots of elementary particles, strings, super strings in to existence, to form the atoms for specific purpose and molecules there after... and cellular structures up to their own final shapes and forms of everything what is - and all that... for His own pleasure, glory and His own sole purpose of design. I also like to apply results of these natural and supernatural searches to understand human behavior in financial markets, in my creative work and in my daily life.
My main inspiration comes from simple wondering and wandering thru the Creator's "garden" of mine - nature. I love to study shapes, rhythm, style and proportions of pretty much all/everything I can find there in. Later, lightly stylized, I apply results of these searches to my own designs to create forms and shapes for use in making pipes and fine craft objects of art... for a sole purpose of meeting my own simple daily needs. It does appear to me that it will eliminate me from the circle of the fine artists who love to express themselves thru the reason of the chaos and the abstract.
From mere mortals I'm the most inspired by the masters of the Style of Art Nouveau - by and from their works and designs in furniture, glass, jewelry, paintings and drawings. This study process started 30 years ago in the library of my Art College and is still going on on a daily/weekly basis uninterrupted ever since. Works of Decorchamont, Dufrene, Galle, Majorelle, Daum, Guimard, Lalique, Mucha and others are the main areas of the interest to me. From wood workers of modern times I'm really inspired by and drawn to works of Vaughan Grant.
Generally I love to work in quiet - I really like to concentrate on what I'm doing. When I drill my pipe or work on my tiny little flower I do that with my utmost concentration in my mind,even then mistakes happen and will happen never less time by time, however, with no concentration paid to this job process at all - these will double and will triple in its own magnitude and will become a FLAW... useless for any ones specific need and consumption of it thereafter.
When I don't listen to the music coming from the stars (never mind -it's supernatural...)... I love to work in the presence of the simple modern neo-classical piano music without the lyrics of Tom Barabas, Al Conti, David Nevue, Kelly Andrew, Eric Harry, Brian Crain, Bernard Koch, Peter Kater and others... and I love my creative mess in my shop - it keeps me organized and focused.
With all the best,
Maigurs Knets.
September 6, 2011
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
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