Viola, the Cat

The stray starving cat is named Viola because she came into my life five minutes before Sarah's viola lesson.

Abandoned Animals

I just rescued a tiny cat, skin and bones, 4.9 pounds - probably dumped by someone too lazy to take care of it in the open space behind my home. I'm supposed to be blogging about making violins, but this gross human behavior gets under my skin.

Sue Hunt arrives from London

Heartsease, a viola I made for Sue Hunt, waits among the spring flowers for her arrival.

Custom Fittings

Kong's Kosmo

For many of my instruments I also create fittings that reflect the chosen theme. These pegs and tailpiece are to be used in a violin with the cosmos as its thematic soul. First I inlaid the crystals, then incised the designs. Next I carefully pressed gold leaf into the contours. As a protective coating for the delicate gold leaf, I filled in the remaining design depressions with clear epoxy varnish. This should keep the decoration intact over many years and thousands of tunings.

There is a rainbow in all our lives

Rainbows are everywhere in my life even in winter.

As I was driving home a large rainbow suddenly appeared. Then it morphed into a double-bow.

It disappeared only to reform minutes later over a perfect little peak to the north.

I thought it was gone, but when I came home the rainbow had landed on Heart's Ease, a viola.

Maybe all this is just a post script to the magical inauguration we as a whole country just experienced.

Kong's Kosmos

The komet in Kong's Kosmos brushes through the atmosphere of a planet seeding music.
A galaxy with constellations in the form of violins spins on the back of the scroll.

The Fight Against Uniformity

Purfling unlike any I have seen. And I like it. Creating this sort of visual touch can only help one to create a patch of turf different from all the other "lawns" on the block.
These external, and in my case, internal touches don't influence the sound, but they do help to annouce the instrument as an individual in tone as well.