An inner world: Gaia, harmonious with the melody of life

Gaia in the end allows the good to remain and eventually erases all traces of folly.

Gaia, a cello

Gaia, eternally pondering the state of her world.

I carved this image on the front of the scroll with her hair flowing back, mane-like and becoming entwined in the roots and leaves of life on the sides and back.

To start the new year I now have my second hip-replacement installed. Thank goodness for modern medicine and the expertise of my surgeon, Dr. Ed Atler, for keeping me on my feet and now able to carry on making instruments for another twenty years or so.

At the end of 2010 I finished "Gaia", a cello, built for a young American currently a resident of Zaragoza, Spain. Phil Wilkinson asked for a Montagnana model with an all-encompassing tone, rich with possibilities in all registers. No small request. I think I came close. Phil decided to call his cello Gaia, expressed interiorly in poetry and pictures, and commending to posterity his concept of our world with Gaia intact and content.

At left Phil gets his first look at Gaia completed. On the right is Gaia posing in my front yard fittingly in front of a maple tree.