Featured Alumni
Justin Nevins, MIBS '97
A Leonardo for Our Time
If you caught last summer's television series, "Treasure Hunters," you are aware of the
brass cylindrical cryptex boxes that helped teams of contestants decipher clues to the hidden
treasure. Those cryptexes are the creation of alumnus
Justin Nevins (MIBS '97), who handcrafted them to the show
creators' specifications. Nevins worked nearly round the clock for six weeks to meet the deadline.
And, remember The Da Vinci Code? Is there anyone on the planet without at least passing knowledge of the Dan Brown novel or the movie by that name? The cryptex was first described in The Da Vinci Code as a cylindrical device with rings that can be turned to find a code to open the cylinder and reveal something hidden inside.
The novel served as inspiration for Nevins' creations. He was at a turning point in his life when he listened to the novel on tape during a cross-country trip in early 2004. His corporate consulting career had come to an end, as had his marriage, and Nevins was headed home to Tacoma, Washington, to stay with his family while he figured out his next move.
Nevins had always been fascinated by puzzles and riddles and how things worked. He was once accused of cheating on an electronics exam when he solved the equation for distribution of amperage through a parallel circuit in only five minutes, a calculation that should have taken an hour. He simply pictured the formula in his head.
A similar curiosity drove him to study Russian language, literature, and linguistics as an undergraduate student at Washington State University in the early 1980s and later, to study Russian business as a MIBS intern. Just as there are different approaches to solving a puzzle, Nevins learned that different cultures have different business solutions.
Nevins problem-solved himself out of his first job after returning to Tacoma. He created a computer program that could perform his job - seven hours of processing invoices-in only 20 minutes.
His Cryptex Crucible
Solving the cryptex wasn't far from his mind when he took his next job tutoring his friends' children in science and math. Wanting to make the lessons more fun, he imagined incorporating science, math, and problem-solving in a puzzle box. He began experimenting with materials and cryptex designs, then one day the light bulb went off in his head about how to make the coded rings functional.
So his first cryptex was created for a children's educational game. The children first had to solve a riddle: "Jumble, tumble, roll on the table. Place your wager, win if you're able. Covered with numbers or covered with dots. Now is the time to cast your lots." Sliding the cryptex rings marked with Elvish runes into place opened the box to reveal a silver pendant with a purple glass (UV light filter). Only when the children shone a Zenon light through the pendant could they see on a scroll a hidden message written in invisible ink.
Other friends saw the cryptex and requested that Nevins build one for them. Soon Nevins began to spend long hours building custom-made boxes. A friend offered to design a Web site for Nevins in exchange for a box of his own. It wasn't long before orders were coming in from around the world. Nevins has sold his creations to customers in 28 countries so far.
Early on, he sent a box, modeled after the one described in The Da Vinci Code, to the author Dan Brown. Some time passed before Brown wrote him back to say, "Your Cryptex is ingenious...not to mention absolutely gorgeous." Brown was so captivated, he later ordered five more boxes.
Functional Art
Customers have ordered boxes in which they have hidden jewelry or airline tickets for birthdays and anniversaries. Sometimes, Nevins will accumulate hundreds of e-mails with a customer as he determines every detail of how to personalize the box for that individual, its purpose, and the special occasion. One man told Nevins how he had kept all of their correspondence and bound it into a book which he presented to his wife, along with the cryptex. She was moved to tears by the story of how the creation evolved.
Nevins will spend anywhere from 20 to 200 hours or more on a cryptex, depending on the design and materials used. He works with a variety of woods, metals, and stones including white oak, mahogany, purple heart, bloodwood, ebony, cocobolo, holly, brass, polished aluminum, marbles and granites. His pieces are considered art by his happy customers who have posted pages of praise on his Web site, www.cryptex.org.
But perfectionism is time-consuming, and Nevins is only one person, and there are only 24 hours in a day, and orders are backing up. So, Nevins experimented with a design he calls a "replica"-a cryptex which is partly machine made, partly handcrafted. Replicas can be made four a day versus four a month for the handcrafted model. They are also more affordable-in the $250 range. (His commissioned pieces can also sell well below a thousand dollars, but one particular piece-a cryptex within a cryptex, modeled after The Da Vinci Code right down to the vial of vinegar-fetched $8,000.)
By the way, Leonardo da Vinci never really made a cryptex. Most people think the cryptex device was conceptualized by the original Renaissance man, but there is no historical evidence that supports this assumption that Dan Brown's fictional account helped perpetuate. (Some curious scholars believe it to be true and have written to Nevins to ask for his sources for the "secret" of da Vinci's cryptex.) Nor could a cryptex be built according to the specifications in the Brown novel, says Nevins. "The marble would have to be at least 1/8 inch thick, which would make the cylinder much larger than the one described in the novel."
So is Nevins a modern day da Vinci? Perhaps. He likes to think da Vinci would have appreciated his artistry and pure design in addition to the cryptex's machinations. And like da Vinci, others have imitated Nevins-more Web sites selling variations of the cryptex have cropped up. But there was only one da Vinci. And there's only one Justin Nevins.
|
| A cryptex box made of bloodwood and brass—one of Justin Nevins' masterpieces. Photo by Jonathan Chicquette/Xsive I Studios, LLC |
And, remember The Da Vinci Code? Is there anyone on the planet without at least passing knowledge of the Dan Brown novel or the movie by that name? The cryptex was first described in The Da Vinci Code as a cylindrical device with rings that can be turned to find a code to open the cylinder and reveal something hidden inside.
The novel served as inspiration for Nevins' creations. He was at a turning point in his life when he listened to the novel on tape during a cross-country trip in early 2004. His corporate consulting career had come to an end, as had his marriage, and Nevins was headed home to Tacoma, Washington, to stay with his family while he figured out his next move.
Nevins had always been fascinated by puzzles and riddles and how things worked. He was once accused of cheating on an electronics exam when he solved the equation for distribution of amperage through a parallel circuit in only five minutes, a calculation that should have taken an hour. He simply pictured the formula in his head.
A similar curiosity drove him to study Russian language, literature, and linguistics as an undergraduate student at Washington State University in the early 1980s and later, to study Russian business as a MIBS intern. Just as there are different approaches to solving a puzzle, Nevins learned that different cultures have different business solutions.
Nevins problem-solved himself out of his first job after returning to Tacoma. He created a computer program that could perform his job - seven hours of processing invoices-in only 20 minutes.
His Cryptex Crucible
Solving the cryptex wasn't far from his mind when he took his next job tutoring his friends' children in science and math. Wanting to make the lessons more fun, he imagined incorporating science, math, and problem-solving in a puzzle box. He began experimenting with materials and cryptex designs, then one day the light bulb went off in his head about how to make the coded rings functional.
So his first cryptex was created for a children's educational game. The children first had to solve a riddle: "Jumble, tumble, roll on the table. Place your wager, win if you're able. Covered with numbers or covered with dots. Now is the time to cast your lots." Sliding the cryptex rings marked with Elvish runes into place opened the box to reveal a silver pendant with a purple glass (UV light filter). Only when the children shone a Zenon light through the pendant could they see on a scroll a hidden message written in invisible ink.
Other friends saw the cryptex and requested that Nevins build one for them. Soon Nevins began to spend long hours building custom-made boxes. A friend offered to design a Web site for Nevins in exchange for a box of his own. It wasn't long before orders were coming in from around the world. Nevins has sold his creations to customers in 28 countries so far.
Early on, he sent a box, modeled after the one described in The Da Vinci Code, to the author Dan Brown. Some time passed before Brown wrote him back to say, "Your Cryptex is ingenious...not to mention absolutely gorgeous." Brown was so captivated, he later ordered five more boxes.
Functional Art
Customers have ordered boxes in which they have hidden jewelry or airline tickets for birthdays and anniversaries. Sometimes, Nevins will accumulate hundreds of e-mails with a customer as he determines every detail of how to personalize the box for that individual, its purpose, and the special occasion. One man told Nevins how he had kept all of their correspondence and bound it into a book which he presented to his wife, along with the cryptex. She was moved to tears by the story of how the creation evolved.
Nevins will spend anywhere from 20 to 200 hours or more on a cryptex, depending on the design and materials used. He works with a variety of woods, metals, and stones including white oak, mahogany, purple heart, bloodwood, ebony, cocobolo, holly, brass, polished aluminum, marbles and granites. His pieces are considered art by his happy customers who have posted pages of praise on his Web site, www.cryptex.org.
But perfectionism is time-consuming, and Nevins is only one person, and there are only 24 hours in a day, and orders are backing up. So, Nevins experimented with a design he calls a "replica"-a cryptex which is partly machine made, partly handcrafted. Replicas can be made four a day versus four a month for the handcrafted model. They are also more affordable-in the $250 range. (His commissioned pieces can also sell well below a thousand dollars, but one particular piece-a cryptex within a cryptex, modeled after The Da Vinci Code right down to the vial of vinegar-fetched $8,000.)
By the way, Leonardo da Vinci never really made a cryptex. Most people think the cryptex device was conceptualized by the original Renaissance man, but there is no historical evidence that supports this assumption that Dan Brown's fictional account helped perpetuate. (Some curious scholars believe it to be true and have written to Nevins to ask for his sources for the "secret" of da Vinci's cryptex.) Nor could a cryptex be built according to the specifications in the Brown novel, says Nevins. "The marble would have to be at least 1/8 inch thick, which would make the cylinder much larger than the one described in the novel."
So is Nevins a modern day da Vinci? Perhaps. He likes to think da Vinci would have appreciated his artistry and pure design in addition to the cryptex's machinations. And like da Vinci, others have imitated Nevins-more Web sites selling variations of the cryptex have cropped up. But there was only one da Vinci. And there's only one Justin Nevins.
—Gail Crouch
July 2007
July 2007