My Artistic Soldier

When my son Elliott was 8, he started making friendly plastic jewelry. Remember that craze? Soon, he was "selling" artistic pins at Grissom elememtary school for $2-$5 each. One month he made over $300...it was really amazing.

But when he was 12, he started competitive shooting. High power rifles to be exact. The rest, as they say, is history. By the time he was 14, he was a nationally ranked shooter, and he still holds records in many states. Eventually, he joined the Army shooting team. He has always marched to his own drummer...and his creative nature and his love for guns makes him the talk of any competition, because his guns are always unique. He once took a gun to the auto-body shop to have it spray painted bright metal-flake BLUE. It was stunning.

Here he is with a plain-jane gun..


But most of the time -- Elliott's guns look more like this:

He did a beautiful job on the gun stock of this particular gun...the fabulous purple and pink wood doesn't really show up in the picture...

This one is my favorite...

When it comes to his "shooting life" -- for me, Elliott's tremendous shooting scores are overshadowed by the artistic beauty of the guns he builds...And I know that's wrong on soooo many levels...