Meet Your Maker: Logan Merrill, Little Hollow Customs

(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.)

Pens were what happened while Logan Merrill was making other plans.

“Pens were kind of an accident. Knifemaking was my childhood passion, and is likely something I will try my hand at in the future. That was actually indirectly responsible for a lot of what I do today, as I learned blacksmithing for that purpose, which then led me to take a welding program, which introduced me to the carpentry and electrical courses and robotics team, and resulted in me getting an engineering degree!” The Merrills moved from Maine, where he grew up, to North Carolina, and suddenly he didn’t have a garage full of tools. “I’d been working on larger items – countertops, barn doors, decks. I had to redirect, so I got a little wood lathe – I was going to learn to turn bowls.”

The guy that was selling the lathe threw in a few pen kits. “I thought it was a good way to learn to control the tool. It was way more fun than I expected! I ran out of kits and got more.”

Pretty soon, he started taking his pens to craft fairs “to pay for more kits.” Trying to match the writing experience of his favorite Sharpie gel pens, he upgraded his kit pens to Schmidt Easy Flow refills and set out to make that a selling point. “Nobody at the fairs understood pens. I still didn’t know about fountain pens but I was excited to upgrade these refills. I started setting out a pad for testing. If people compared the Schmidt refill to the others, I’d have a sale.”

The first bespoke fountain pen Merrill saw was being made by Jason Miller of Jason Neil Penworks, on his Instagram live. “I decided to try that. That’s when it turned into a business instead of something to keep me busy. I sold my motorcycle to pay for tools. I had also found that I would rather be home with my girls than out riding, and I always enjoyed working on it more than riding it anyway.”

Things escalated quickly. At their former home in Maine, Merrill redid the countertops in resin, so casting blanks did not seem like a big leap. “And making mistakes when prototyping on blanks I’d bought got expensive!”

The whole family has become involved in the business. Because he works full-time as an electrical engineer for a company that makes and sells tools for testing power grid equipment, he is on the road about half the time, and it became difficult to keep up with the inventory. His wife Em is now handling at least half of the polishing as well as the online presence of the business, and their daughters aged 3 and 5 have discovered they like vacuuming up the resin shavings from the shop. A CNC machine is a recent acquisition to further speed things up. Living one state over from Jonathon Brooks meant it was possible to have Brooks come spend a day helping set it up. Merrill spotted differences in their approaches to pen making. “He has way more of an artistic approach, I’m more of an engineering approach.”

Engineering may be the dominant mindset, but when it came to naming the business, Merrill went in a different direction. “Little Hollow is actually the meaning of my name, from Scottish Gaelic, which ties back to where my family is from. We decided it was a good way to sign my work without literally putting my name on it! It also represents a naturally sheltered habitat where we’re free to live and dream and create.”

The Merrills have been taking their show on the road, with a presence at a few pen shows. “I fully expected it to be hard for the girls, but they love pen shows – even though they hide under the table. In Miami they were reaching out and grabbing people’s ankles, so we have to strap a board to the front of the table so they won’t do that!”

Anyone who saw the Little Hollow table at this year’s DC pen show saw the Monster Finger pen. Where on earth did THAT come from?? “I’ve always been fascinated with blacksmithing. Knife making is one source of inspiration – it can’t just be art, it has to be durable art.” After seeing some knife handles made in an alloy called “gem bronze,” he contacted the maker of the alloy, @mikes_metalworking of Portland OR, and asked for a rod of it. “Mike experiments with a ton of really cool alloys, and we have a lot of conversations regarding which materials are most compatible with pens, and Mike sends me rods of them.”

It was Mike that put him in touch with the metal artist Virg, of The Abyss Looks Back @theabysslooksback001 (formerly called Toothurty). At the time, Virg was focused on motifs involving teeth. “If you know D&D, there is this thing called a Mimic – it copies the appearance of a different object. I sent him a Mistress model in solid brass, and he created a masterpiece! This is the Mimic of fountain pens.”

“The Monster Finger was a style he was carving previously as an EDC piece, and after seeing how well the carved pens were received, he asked if I could make a pen that would work with that carving style. I had to design the pen specifically to allow the joints to fall in areas that could be hidden in the finger carving, and redesign the section with a threaded sleeve to allow the nib to be rotated, so the Monster Finger was in the works for awhile.”

There might be more madness forthcoming. “We collaborated on three pens before the Monster Finger, which all sold before they were completed. I keep him supplied with material, and see what comes out of his head.”

Those who dared to hoist the weight of the Finger and unscrew the cap would have seen a Schon Design Monoc nib. “I justified the Monoc to put in that pen – you couldn’t just put an ordinary Jowo in it.” Metal work like that produced by Schon, or pens with wood and metal, are Merrill’s favorites. “I get far more excited by the natural materials.” He’s enjoying a koa wood pen from TriStar Studios, and he’s been coveting the “Old Ironsides” pen made in a limited edition, out of wood from the ship, by John Greco of GW Pens. “Old Ironsides was one of my favorite topics to research in school. After the Empire State pen show, I’m now the proud owner of pen 2/10!” For a nib, he prefers a needlepoint grind by Kirk Speer, and he’s assembling a collection of maker pens. “I haven’t really been drawn to manufactured pens…yet.”

Even though Little Hollow is a fairly young business, Merrill doesn’t foresee a time when he loses interest. “I love a challenge! And there are so many challenges. I don’t see myself getting bored. One of my favorite challenges is making sure that each of my designs is crafted in a way that allows me to reliably repeat the result. That way if something does go wrong (we all drop pens at some point), I can make replacement parts or repair existing components.” He’s been experimenting with rotary engraving, as well as delving into the engineering of pen components. “There are so many details about fountain pens. You can branch out into the technical details of nibs, feeds, housings – all of that can be made. I always have a new thing to learn. I can go wild and create something, and then take it to shows and get feedback and adjust the end product.”

Merrill sees the nature of pen making as part of sharing his values with his children. “My work is on the computer. The kids don’t see me making or doing anything – to go to work, I either sit at the computer or leave the house. I want them to understand the amount of work that goes into different things. Maybe it will inspire them to make something themselves.”

Logan Merrill’s work can be seen on his Instagram @littlehollowcustoms, his website Little Hollow Customs, and at pen shows in Atlanta, California, Miami, New York, and St Louis.

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Meet Your Maker: Dennis Humm, Den’s Pens

(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.)

Dennis Humm’s first fountain pen was acquired by way of self-improvement. “When I was very young my index finger was damaged. It affected my handwriting, which was terrible. I decided to try doing calligraphy to improve my writing.” His wife acquired a TWSBI Eco, and he gave it a try. “There was a massive improvement in my handwriting right away.”

Of course, he then went looking for his next pen, and found some of the custom makers online. “I didn’t have any money, I couldn’t afford that, but I had access to a lathe. I decided to try to make one. I got some blanks and parts at a local store.” While he never tried component pens, the supplies he bought included a steel section that was already threaded because he didn’t yet have taps and dies. “I made a green monster of a pen that later became the Titan model. I still have it.”

The blanks he bought were a mix of materials, and in trying them out “I gained my hatred of polyester. The last person that asked for polyester got a rather rude reply; I’m quite plain spoken! I persevered and made a working pen, then I dropped it and it broke and I said Never Again.”

As he shopped for blanks online, he again ran into the funding issue, and thought he could maybe make those too. “My budget for the setup was based on what I wanted to order from Jonathon Brooks.”

Dennis feels that being neurodivergent predisposed him to jump into doing all these things himself. “I have a lot of different hobbies – roleplaying games, reading, writing, board games… I am dyslexic but I learn through reading. Once I get my head around the reading I take on the information easily.”

A look at the Den’s Pens website shows perhaps the longest list of models of any maker. A Reddit comment Dennis saw one day about custom pens being just cylinders spurred him to make just about anything but a plain cylinder. “My first batch of pens had ten designs – I thought what could I do with the skill set I had at that time.” All his models are named for mythological figures – “sometimes the name comes first, sometimes the design” - and the shaping of the pen speaks to aspects of the name. “The Titans were before the Greek gods and birthed them, so the Titan is my most basic design, it births the other designs. Mars has conical ends like swords, or like the mountains on the planet Mars. Zeus is inspired by a lightning bolt.” Even his two daughters are named after goddesses.

(Photo: Edmund Terakopian)

He tries to create a new model every year. “I’m all the time thinking of new ideas. The Eris category on my website has the ideas that are not quite where I want them yet, random ideas. Right now there is a pen with a fish tail, one with a unicorn horn cap, one with a crescent moon.” He has a Dremel tool to help with some of the very fine shapes. “Each model has to be definitely distinct from all the others.”

(Photo: Edmund Terakopian)

Some of that fine work has led to the pen he’s practically world-famous for, the Baetylus. “I thought of it while walking in the garden and gave it a try. I had an idea for a set – Earth, Air, Fire, Water – and Baetylus, which is a sacred stone in ancient Greek religion, was for earth.” Because of the hand shaping, each Baetylus is different, and in some materials it can resemble a raw crystal. “This is the one I’m proudest of. And it has a built-in roll stop!”

The rest of the series is slower to come to fruition. “The fish tail shape was me thinking about water; fire would be material-based; for air I had a tornado idea but I’m not sure yet how to do it.”

At this point in his process, his professional background comes to his aid. “I manage a lab testing doors and windows – for watertightness and airtightness, but also security. I’m one of the best trained burglars in Europe and I train other people to do it. I can walk down the street and tell you how secure your windows are!”

In the same way, he tests his pen materials. “I test them to their limit to see how far I can push them, how thin the walls can be. Generally if they are mixed by machine you can go thinner. Inclusions like glitter make it harder. I err on the side of caution with my own stuff but I can push Brooks and Diamondcast materials a little further.”

When Dennis was first looking at custom pens by other makers, he wrote himself a wish list. His current favorite pen he didn’t make himself is a Carina gifted to him by Eric Sands of Atelier Lusso. When Sands was planning to come to the UK for a visit, they made pens for one another. He gave Sands one of his first Govannon pens, named for the Welsh god of blacksmithing. “It was my first design with metal – I learned a new skill for that.”

Inspiration is everywhere – “When I’m reading, or playing computer games – I call it being hit with an inspiration atom.” From there, it’s straight to the lathe. “I don’t do drawings, I go from my brain to a physical thing I can hold. If I can imagine it in my head, I can make it with my hands.”

Dennis Humm’s work can be seen on his website Den’s Pens, and his shop at dens-pens.square.site; on his Instagram @denscustompens; on his Twitch stream Twitch.tv/denspens2k; and at pen shows in London in spring and fall. Future shows will include more in the UK, and perhaps the Dutch and Singapore shows.

Meet Your Maker: Lyravelle Pens

(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.)

This is the thirty-sixth Meet Your Maker article. Your correspondent is always keeping eyes open for interesting makers to meet, and it’s fitting to celebrate the completion of a third year with a story so unusual it caught me by surprise.

What if a pen maker wanted to assume a fictional identity to craft the story of their pens?? One day on Instagram, an image of a pen captured my attention.

And then there was this:

I had to know more, especially as the pens continued to appear, and the maker dubbed himself Apprentice, puzzling out clues left behind in the Maker’s abandoned workshop. Magic bells. Spinning blue lights. Flowers in clear running streams. I reached across time and space (i.e. I sent an Instagram message) to find the answers.

Google Meet opened a portal, and the Apprentice, known to me as Jesse, spoke to me from a workshop in Colorado hung with handmade guitars.

He got hooked (sorry; I’ll see myself out) on making things as a fishing-obsessed child of ten, turning fishing lures on the lathe in his father’s workshop. “I get hyperfocused on hobbies, and go really deep.” Taking up music in high school led to building custom electric guitars. “It takes about eighty hours to make a guitar and uses lots of toxic chemicals, so I reluctantly gave that up.”

A busy career in health care and behavioral science didn’t put a damper on the creative drive. Jesse did portrait sculpture (“the MESSIEST form of art you can imagine”) and painting. He grew up with journaling, reading, and creative writing, so between that and the need to take notes at meetings, a pen was often in his hand. “I wanted to make writing more special. One day I thought, ‘Are there other ways I can write besides this Bic?’” The answer, of course, was YES.

The rabbit hole, as we know, is steep and deep. “I tried the big brands. Watching ink dry was therapeutic – to watch the line appear and dry. I tried a variety of nibs.”

This past spring, he made his first pen. “Whenever I get involved in something, I try to make it.” His lifelong love of fantasy literature merged with his love of pens to create a whole world.

“I was looking at a beautiful pen and imagining a story where the major characters used writing to overcome challenges in their lives. I was using pens to overcome some neurodivergences, and I had most of the equipment already, so I ordered some blanks and made a pen. It was ok! I decided to create the things that inspire me.”

Imagining pens with a role in a fantasy world led quickly to an entire little universe called Lyravelle in which he presented his pens to the world. “Lyra, in the Golden Compass books, was a character I admired for her spontaneity and courage, and standing up to authority.” His Alethia model, as well as the name of his alternate world, pay homage to Lyra and her Alethiometer. He and his partner both have background in graphic design, which shows in the visual maturity of his photographic theme. “I went out and bought materials to create a diorama for my photos.”

In the Lyravelle story, Jesse becomes the Apprentice, a cloaked figure seen only from the back as he walks toward a mysterious building where he finds the abandoned tools and materials of a vanished Maker of pens. The idea of being masked and playing a character came somewhat naturally. “I’ve had to mask who I am and play a part. There is a work character, a social character. I’m also fascinated with masked bands – each one plays a character and creates a sense of mystery. It doesn’t matter who they are, it matters who their characters are.”

Even in the short few months he has been making pens, Jesse has fielded requests for commissions, and working on them has clarified for him that he does not want to take commissions in the future. “When you’re putting together someone else’s vision, you are a Fabricator – enjoying working with the materials. For me the enjoyable part is working out my own vision - having the idea and then getting the result – being the Artist.” Being driven by his own vision helps drown out the inner voice that many of us have, the Perfectionist. “When I’m doing the making I’m constantly self critical.”

Making blanks is not a path Jesse sees himself following. “I don’t need another hobby – I love the hunt for a pen, and for the materials others are creating, not making it all on my own. It’s fun to buy all these blanks!”

Finding a welcoming community of pen makers has relaxed the boundaries of his anonymity a little. “I’m part of a maker chat where the conversation goes on all day long. The guitar building community was the opposite – very secretive about material sources and finishing techniques. Everyone saw each other as competitors. Pen people in general are some of the kindest people. I’ve had people send me tools – ‘You’re going to need this’ – and they say just pay it forward. It’s fun to have a community with that kind of camaraderie.”

Jesse’s inspirations come from ideas and subjects that interest him. His first model, Aestarion, evokes the bells of Sabriel in the Old Kingdom books, with a cap shaped a little bit like a bell. “I don’t sit down and design a pen. I draw all day when I should be taking notes in meetings. I’ll draw a pen ten or fifteen times before going to the lathe.” The Nautilune model, which he recently shared for the first time, and refined with input from other makers, was inspired by his fascination with the sea and with cephalopods. “They’re intelligent, and also alien – I’m obsessed by the idea of intelligence outside of the human. I wanted the pen to look like it was swimming in your hand.”

His design process means that he’s not going to be a high volume maker, which complicates the process of exhibiting at shows. “I plan to do a couple of shows someday, because I’d like to connect with the community in that way. I can see the setup I’d like to make on my table.”

Jesse wants to start collecting pens from other makers. “But when you’re a maker you don’t want anyone to think you’re buying their pens for R&D! Will they inspire me more than I want them to??” He worked at first with a few resins containing floral inclusions, but quickly decided “Luke PapaJ owns floral resins, and he should own that.” His current favorite pen that he didn’t make himself is an Aurora 88 Volterra, in an acrylic made to imitate alabaster. “It’s so elegant. Every line is almost perfect. It has unexpected green glowing fragments. I love soft nibs but this nib made me fall in love with harder nibs.” It seems somewhat appropriate that the pen is part of the “secret voyage in Italy” series.

He’s in the process of writing a group of novellas developing the world of Lyravelle. “Not to give too much away – a character who has some of the same flaws I do finds the gateway to a parallel world. Pens have power in that world. Each of us has a twin there, but the ability to speak has been taken away, so pens give them their voices and their power. I grew up reading fantasy – The Old Kingdom books, Wrinkle in Time, Earthsea – I can live a completely different life in a fantasy world. What would my story be? Can pens become items of power? I want to make the art I want to see in the world.”

The Apprentice’s work can be seen on Instagram @lyravelle_pens, on his just launched website, and maybe at the Colorado pen show soon.