Matt Lerch and Brian Hochstrat collaboration - The Vargas Girls!

HTMD

HTMD

Joined
Feb 15, 2002
Messages
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This is a mighty fine collaboration, a potential award-winning collaboration, by two outstanding artists - Matthew Lerch and Brian Hochstrat.


The beautiful knife is a button-release (as opposed to a spring-loaded auto) and liner-lock configuration by Matt Lerch - a first class folding knife with space for Brian to just engrave the heck out of it! And he did an amazing job with "The Vargas Girls" and all the fancy gold loops and swoops.


Main elements of the gold patterns are engraved in a trompe l'oeil manner. The end result is that the gold actually looks sculpted but that is the trompe l'oeil illusion. It totally fooled me at first - I really thought it was sculpted in deep relief style until I looked closely.


Vargas is well known as one of the best ever female nude illustrators and his work appeared for many years in PLAYBOY magazine. Brian worked from two of Vargas' illustrations for this project - call them "Hat Girl" and "Wedding Girl" if you like. They are done in meticulous Italian bulino style engraving. I don't understand how Brian makes them look so real. I know it has to do with the extensive and at times subtle shadows and highlights Brian engraves into the gold but beyond that it's magic as far as I'm concerned.


I really hope this knife gets campaigned in Atlanta at BLADE Show. In the world of art knives it simply doesn't get any better than this. "As good as" maybe but "better" - I don't think so. The human figure is so difficult to render, whereas animals, landscapes, patterns etc. are far easier. Brian excels at rendering the human form in an attractive and natural way - the mark of a substantially talented artist.


I received very good input from Matt, Brian and the knife's lucky/smart owner while making this image. We went back and forth with draft images addressing various concerns. They helped me better "see" what's going on with the knife and the engraving. "Seeing" is the hardest part of photography and I didn't have a lot of time to get to know this knife in order to see in my mind the best way to depict it. The knife is a collaborative effort by design, but the image was a collaborative effort too.


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What I see is "perfection" in every sense of the word. Three great artists come together to create a work or art.
 
Brian just gets better and better.

Matt crafted an amazing knife, and Buddy really shows it off.

By the way, the owner rates kudos as a patron of the art.

John
 
WOW! I'm well-aware of how smart Matt's folders are. Brian just sent this beyond Mensa... :)

I REALLY love the gold scrolls--especially the backspine.

Buddy, it doesn't get any clearer or more dramatic. Perfecto!

Thanks for the post.

Coop
 
My thanks to all for posting this truly magnificent creation.

I fondly remember lusting after these girls.

The knife is fabulous.

Even Hefner would have been stunned by the evocative representation of the luscious Vargas Girls.

Mike H.
 
There's some more I should post about this.

From Brian:
All the colors are inlayed metals. The yellow is obviously yellow gold, but the rest of the colors are not as self explanatory. the gray fluff on hat girls dress is palladium, the rest of the colors are all gold alloys, pink and green are standard alloy colors, but the skin tone gold is a custom alloy that I came up with for that specific use. Also the girls hair is a japanese alloy that I mixed called shakudo, which is a low karat mix of copper and gold, which creates a patina that is richer than what standard copper will produce. The scroll work is art nouveau, aka liberty scroll. The girls as you know are reproductions of Alberto Vargas, but are adapted to better fit the area provided on the knife. If you compare the engraving to the original artwork you can see the elongation of the girls in the engraving, which ads to their feminine quality and makes better use of the space the knife had to offer.

Also from Brian come the original illustrations. Not sure of the time period but they are from before the 1960s when I became familiar with Vargas' illustrations.

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What is not to love....attractive women and knives, two of my favorite things :)

seriously though.....the level of artistry all the way around on this knife just makes you shake your head in amazement!!

regards Jeff
 
Matt and Brian did an amazing job working together to bring this project to life. Brian laid out the engraving area for the Vargas Girls and Matt pretty much built the knife around that incorporating his design features, Damascus and sculpting. Also, this is actually a double action credit card knife. The mechanism works as a button-release or, with the hidden action tripped (a credit card pushing against the inside of the backbar does the trick) it functions as an auto. A push on the skull crusher returns it to a button-release action. A remarkable piece of engineering.
 
Knifeologist said:
...this is actually a double action credit card knife. The mechanism works as a button-release or, with the hidden action tripped (a credit card pushing against the inside of the backbar does the trick) it functions as an auto. A push on the skull crusher returns it to a button-release action. A remarkable piece of engineering.
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Bummer - I totally missed this! Kudos to Matt Learch though - the knife is sweet and oh so refined.
 
.. spectacular work, Brian Hochstrat is top in a lot of different styles and techniques , great craftmanship and taste .... it is more than a desire to let him made an embellishment for me because he is one of the more talented engraving artist all around the world at the day,

complimentissimi
rino
 
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