(Caroline Foty's first fountain pen was a 1970s Sheaffer No Nonsense that still writes perfectly. Since she discovered pens by independent makers, she wants "one of each, please" and wants to meet all the makers. Maybe you do, too. She lives in Baltimore with pens, cats, and all kinds of fiber arts supplies.)
Jon Lewis was not only a teenage pen nerd, he was a generous teenage pen nerd. “I always liked pens. My first fountain pen, when I was a junior in high school, was a LAMY Safari. I gave it to a teacher who was a big influence on me.” He then spent eleven years in the Air Force as a pararescue paramedic, which was not big fountain pen territory. “We couldn’t use fountain pens – I had Fisher Space Pens, ballpoints.”
When that phase of his life came to an end, Jon headed back to pens, wanting to learn to turn his own. “I worked on kit pens, but they weren’t enough of a challenge for me. I got interested in kitless pens and spent half a year figuring out how to do it. Five years ago there weren’t many makers actually showing their processes.” He’s recently begun doing some live streaming and teaching to increase the amount of information available about making pens.
Abbie didn’t discover fountain pens “and all that comes with them” until Jon started making them. “I was a gel pen, highlighter, journaling tools kind of girl!” As we all know, that is a slippery slope.
Abbie says that their strengths are sort of opposite to one another, which makes them complementary in the business. “I do all the finishing and polishing, the fidgety and somewhat monotonous stuff.” Jon thrives on problem solving at the lathe – “My mind always wanders – what am I going to figure out next? Abbie gets comfy doing the same things.” She quickly decided she wasn’t too happy with the color palettes of much of the available pen materials, and wanted to learn to make her own. “I watched the video that David (Figboot) Parker did with Jonathon Brooks, mixing resins, and I had a lot of trial and error. I wanted to bring my colors to our fountain pens. And I wanted our materials to stand out. There are only so many possible shapes.”
At that point they decided they were going to make this thing a business. They chose the name Maverick to indicate their intention to blaze their own trail.
Their first pen show was at Orlando in 2023. Jon says, “Joe sent a message on Etsy that he was starting a pen show in Orlando. I didn’t know that was a thing!” Abbie was skeptical – “With two elementary school aged kids, that’s a lot. I was bribed with a visit to Disney.” Bottom line – “We fell in love with pen shows.” In a move that might be compared to going from the kiddie pool to the high dive, they next added the DC show. They sat next to Shawn Newton there, and quickly got to know Jim Hinze, and Rich Paul, and other pen makers.
Their big hit at their first show was the Stratified pen they dreamed up. Jon says, “I saw layered pens that were completely flat. I didn’t want to make something that looked like little biscuits put together.” One day he picked up a small overpour block from Abbie’s resin casting. “I looked at it sideways and thought, ‘Whoa!’” The material is not glued or recast, it’s poured intentionally.
The pens quickly led to their signature pen show “uniform”, shirts printed from photographs of the poured resins. Not only does it make them instantly recognizable, “I can find him when he’s wandering around the show.” They have also printed the design onto Rickshaw pen sleeves.
The gift of a Drillog nib from a customer prompted Jon to develop a Drillog nib holder. But an even bigger hit was their “Forever Pencils” – turned resin bodies with a graphite insert and an eraser. “I grabbed components from other pencils and put them together.” Abbie says they were surprised what a hit they were. “They were so popular! I didn’t think anyone would buy those!”
An additional benefit of going to pen shows has been the opportunity to check out vintage pens. Abbie says, “We’ve enjoyed getting to learn from the vintage guys. That’s where fountain pens started.” For Jon, it inspired a “passion project” – “I want to reinvigorate some vintage pens, add flair around parts. I bought some project pens that were broken – so many of them have gold nibs - and I’m adding new bodies to old pens.”
This sort of inspiration keeps his ideas flowing. “I think all the time. I can focus on something for days and figure out how to implement it. For example – how awesome is it to write with the Pilot Parallel? They are so cool, but the handles are boring. I thought, there is a problem here to be solved. We can enhance this. I made a cap and barrel for a Parallel.” Abbie adds, “Artists like their tools. We want our tools to be beautiful.”
As they expand their pen show attendance, the Lewises are mindful of their kids’ schedules. If they decide to vend at a show when school is in session, Abbie will go and Jon will stay home with the kids. They’ve put thought into how they are present at shows, too, and enjoy talking through the show experience with people who are new to it. Jon says, “You aren’t wasting our time. We’re there to be a part of the community. We try to make them feel that they aren’t being annoying even if they aren’t buying one of our pens.” “We have tons of testers,” Abbie says, “we want you to touch things.” Jon adds, “That’s why you go in person.”
They have different approaches to walking through a show themselves. Jon says, “I almost wouldn’t look at makers’ pens at shows, I just talked to the person. We don’t want our stuff to look like others.” “I get to be the in-between person,” Abbie says, “because I’m not the turner. I’ll pick up everything!”
They share a point of view on favorite pens – they like small. They both admire the Kaweco Sport with all its colors, and Jon likes the Lilliput even better because he likes the metal. His goal is to collect all the metal models of both pens. And he’s working on a design for a pocket pen that will have some of the same appeal as a Sport.
Jon sees the love of hand writing as something he wants to pass on to his children, and one of his goals is to teach them to use cursive writing. “My grandmother gave me a stationery package when I entered basic training. She handwrote letters. My grandfather always carried a notebook. I’ve had the kids write a letter to someone in a nursing home. We want to inspire people to write their stories, and we don’t want hand writing to be lost.”
The Lewises’ favorite things about their pen making vocation mirror their approaches to the structure of their business and their presence at pen shows. Jon says, “I like to solve problems, using what I already do to make solutions happen.” Abbie immediately refers to the community of pen users and pen makers. “I love being at shows, being a part of the community, seeing our pens being used, seeing what ink people are using, and what planner layouts … It’s a tight knit community and I’ve loved everybody I’ve met. And we get to welcome new people to the community.”
Jon and Abbie Lewis’s work can be seen on their website Maverick Pens on Instagram, and on Jon’s YouTube channel Maverick Workshop, and at pen shows in California, DC, Orlando, San Francisco, and maybe Chicago.
