It has been an artsy week at the little green workshop in the woods. I’m so grateful for the hands that help – while a big stack of bodies are being cut and edged and a few on the other end of their time in the woodshop are being sanded, I devoted the week to being an artist. Inlaying jade, carving scrolls, melding some Rickenbacker into a particularly creative Sadhana build, working on a doubleneck.
When this all was just a dream, the vision was of sitting in a workshop corner carving a piece of ebony trim all day. As a reality, such detailed craft gets worked in around lumber prep and gluing, cutting and routing, and so many other layers of what it takes to get a custom instrument to become, most of which I love doing. It also gets worked around stuff that drains my time, beats up my hands or I don’t enjoy as much – sanding, some neck work, edging – stuff I get help with whenever I can. That’s part of the process too; to get great results you have good hands doing what they’re best at. Believe me there’s enough in a build to keep me busy and I’m all over every one and taste their dusts.
There are a fair number of fun, artsy, embellished instruments to build this year; I said yes to a good number of requests. Some will have a lot of woodwork in their layers, others engraving and inlay, some turquoise, a little jade; there’s a handful of scrolls to carve, and some interesting feature combinations to fit together into a few unique pieces.
This week mostly I grouped together some artistic nexts… here are some pictures from the workshop. Enjoy and be sure to reward your hard work with some creative time; then reward the world by sharing what you do. It will make someone happy, and might even inspire them!
Play nice,
Listening to: A good mix of John Scofield live in ’92, Peter Gabriel Passion, some great delta blues from Jack Owens, and Doug Raney Guitar Guitar Guitar.