Welcome to Maverick’s Musings!
Musings will be an occasional blog in which I post my thoughts on a wide variety of topics, not all of which will have anything whatsoever to do with the actual running and products of Maverick Leathers.
By way of introduction, I’m an ex-pat American who has lived in Vienna, Austria since May 2008.
A self-taught leather craftsman, I made my first projects while a college student in the early ’70s. I will post more about that in a later post.
My leather craft experience includes running the first incarnation of Maverick Leathers while a graduate student in Kentucky in the late 70’s; during which time I worked flea markets in Kentucky and Ohio. Among the markets I worked were:
· Georgetown, KY, where I survived a day in which tornadoes destroyed the police garage and two brand new cruisers, and no less than five bounced directly over the market;
· Paintsville, KY, which is country singer Loretta Lynn’s hometown; and
· Caesar Creek, OH, where I was a charter member of one of the largest indoor flea markets in the USA at the time.
I taught leather craft to the residents of the medium security prison in Lexington, KY.
I also taught myself book binding and restoration as part of a job as a restorer of leather bound books for the library of the graduate school I attended.
The current incarnation of Maverick Leathers was officially launched on 1 August 2011, when Birgit, a.k.a. Mrs. Maverick, obtained the trade license necessary to sell our products.
The first event we worked was the Montmartre Arts and Culture Festival in Vienna the first weekend of September 2011. More on this later also. Since then we have set up in Advent, Easter, and other markets in and around Vienna.
Our products have been very well received by both the buying public and the event organizers we have dealt with. In fact, as of this writing, we have been juried into every event / market to which we applied. And have been invited to participate in more events than we can fit into our schedule this year. So, we are looking forward to a VERY busy market season.
Hopefully, we will have some interesting news and stories to tell you along the way.
Oh yeah, before I forget: What’s love got to do with it?
I’m also what is known as a “love-immigrant” to Austria.
I met my wife in February 2007, when I came here for a month long visit. We spent a great deal of time together during that visit, and again when I returned on business in May and November of 2007. We were married on Valentine’s Day 2008, when we were the 14th couple ever married in the Wedding Chapel in Valentines, Virginia. Not many couples get married in The Wedding Chapel, for it is located in the Post Office / General Store and is only open for weddings on weddings on Valentine’s Day. We moved to Vienna, which is her home town, in May of 2008. And have been here ever since.
I’ve lived in four States (New York, Kentucky, Texas and Virginia), and four countries (the USA, Scotland, England, and Austria).
Absolutely fantastic places I’ve lived include Edinburgh, Scotland; Bicester, England, which is a once small town just outside Oxford; Austin, Texas; and Vienna,
I’ve also visited San Antonio, Los Angeles, St Louis, Boston, New York, London, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Zagreb, and a number of other cities in my time.
And I must say that, so far, Vienna is the one I love the most.
So, as a love-immigrant to Austria, who loves Vienna, I guess you could say love has everything to do with it.
Maverick