The Maker's Canvas

Tim Cullen of Hooligan Georgia has garnered an international reputation for his ability to make custom fountain pens, from cap crown to nib tip

- SUZANNE C. LEE

Tim Cullen, owner of Hooligan Georgia and eminent artisan, is a born maker. Even now, he says, he enjoys watching the act of creation, whatever the result. To witness something arise from nothing in the hands of a skilled artisan is awesome in the truest sense of the word, and Cullen relishes the experience of viewing such a remarkable formation. It's something like backwards magic: now you don't see it, now you do.

"I'm a maker's junkie," Cullen laughs. "I'm a groupie. I can watch someone quilt. I just love creativity." Much of the time, however, Cullen is the sorcerer whose hands and mind make presence from absence, art from the void. The movement from emptiness to substance has been a theme of his artistic career, in that he has sought out knowledge and experience in order to teach himself nearly every aspect of pen making. Cullen learned it all, from the body's creation on his 1950s Atlas lathe to metal overlay to nib-tipping.

Ravenous for information, skills ever expanding, this once-apprentice is now a master of the craft-and getting a lot of attention for it. In a serendipitous turn, Cullen's love of watching other people make art led to being lauded for his own artisan fountain pens.

We Are Makers is a biannual publication, now on its sixth volume, as well as a blog and podcast. The journal presents creators of all stripes those who generate and produce. For Volume Six, Cullen became the first fountain pen artisan profiled in We Are Makers, and he even made the cover, but he was a fan of the volumes long before his inclusion.