Sunday, May 19, 2024
Mike Blum seems to be everywhere doing everything in the Rio Grand Valley. He lives in McAllen and knows all about the valley. He says the area covered by 11 states is smaller than the area covered by the Rio Grand Valley. “Geographically, the valley is 90 miles from east to west and 40 miles north to south. It’s home to 1.2 million people in Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy, and Starr Counties.”
Mike was McAllen’s city planner, was museum president, played Santa Claus for 20 years (even though he’s Jewish), is in real estate and is an active civic worker among other things. “I am a twelve-string guitar player and I’ve been doing music with our Sunday School kids for 30 years, teaching them Jewish songs. I love doing that.”
He also plays guitar at services in his synagogue. He is Humanitarian of the Year for Easter Seals. “When I was seven years old, I had polio. I only had it four days. The first day I was almost unable to move. The second day I was paralyzed. The third day things started easing up, and the fourth day it was gone. I never had another problem from the polio. But in high school I realized how important it is to take care of kids who have polio and I volunteered at the American Red Cross to learn how to be a babysitter for kids in a wheelchair or have braces on their legs.”
What he really likes to do is create works of art in wood. I’ll put some wood on the machine, and something will come of it. I’ve got to have an idea going in, but sometimes the wood tells you what to do, and you just let the wood talk.” He goes to meetings of the Wood Turners Association where he learns new techniques and buys exotic woods. A bowl he made in a high school shop class sits on his desk. “Fifty years after I made that bowl, my daughter was having a baby in Spring, Texas. Her husband took me to what I call a big boy toy store. It was a woodcraft store. I saw a mini-lathe designed to turn pens, as in ballpoint pens. I bought it, took it home, and, within a matter of days, I turned my first piece since I was sixteen. I was hooked. For the next ten years, I made a lot of little pieces, little bowls, little nothings. Periodically, I’d experiment.”
He spent two years studying with a professional wood turner. He did some favors for that person, and - to show his appreciation - he gave Mike a two thousand-dollar lathe. “I can now turn 48 inches long and 18 inches in diameter.”
Some of his pieces sell for thousands of dollars. He uses wood and epoxy to create a gallery of award-winning fine art. He makes lamps, vessels of all sorts, and even wooden eggs that have become collectors’ items.
“I have developed a skill set that allows me to look at a piece of wood and imagine what it would look like if I did this or that. I can take a piece of ugly wood, put it in a pot of epoxy, turn it, and the epoxy fills in all the imperfections and you wind up with a spectacularly different piece of wood.” The international Museum of Art and Science in Houston has recognized his work.
