Driving through the middle of Ohio, somewhere in the small town of Logan you see a small shed with brightly colored pencils painted on the outside. You might think “oh, what a nice space for art classes!” or “my, what a quaint art supply store!” Both excellent guesses. But if you instead said, “I bet that’s a pencil sharpener museum!” then you were spot on. Assembled by the late Reverend Paul Johnson, this remarkable collection of more than 3,400 sharpeners is organized by categories like history, cats, Disneyland, religion, hearts, space, zodiac, and “special.” As colorful a collection as it is, though, even better still are the various newspaper clippings assembled about it: Never A Dull Moment; Retired Minister Stays Sharp; Keen Collector: His Hobby Makes A Point; The Point Man; Looking Sharp; and so forth. (The Reverend was apparently quite the interviewee.) Puns aside, there is something wonderfully quirky about a museum full of so many sharpeners that never met a dull pencil. They were ready to spring into action at any moment, but never actually needed to. The artifacts became tools not to sharpen writing implements, but instead a mental reminder to their collector to–as the museum’s slogan says–“Keep Sharp, Be Sharp, Act Sharp, Stay Sharp, Look Sharp.” Which makes you wonder… what do the pencil sharpeners busy themselves with when there is nothing and no one around to sharpen?
