colors speak louder than words

"clouds come floating

into my life, no longer

to carry rain or usher storm,

but to add color to my sunset sky."

-rabindranath tagore

while posting on my instagram account about how i love digging through this oversized basket of hand dyed threads with which to spill a bit of colour on cloth on a rainy day, i was struck by my hoarding tendencies when it comes to art supplies. do i have a problem? should i seek help? divest myself of my treasures? comply with normality??

...nah! not when it allows me to manifest bunnies like this little guy soaking up a little rusty sunshine:

yeah, yeah...i know...he's purple! but he wanted to be purple. honestly!  i'd better get back to stitching him. having only a sketchy body is making him nervous...

namasté

playing through the pain

"music washes away

from the soul

the dust

of everyday life."

-red auerbach

a few days ago, a log was dropped on my right foot, breaking two toes and smashing two others. talk about an extreme way to slow oneself down!  even though occupational rehab seems to think that the weekend is all i needed away from the craziness at my construction job to heal enough to return to climbing ladders and hauling steel, i'm still finding ways to take it easy.

i wanted to stitch this weekend...the gods know how much i miss my needle chanting!  but the pain just wouldn't allow me to focus.  so i turned to music.  strumming quietly upon one of my treasured dulcimers. it got me to thinking. i have a wonderful dulcimer collection, but have never catalogued them.  so i started rounding them all up and tracking down the various scraps of paper and digital files containing what information i have on each of them (some are better documented than others). 

these two lovelies are the ones that started my love affair with appalachian dulcimers.  the one on the left is by a wonderful luthier by the name of joe sanguinette (now deceased). it is made of walnut with a purpleheart fret board and dogwood inlaid centers on the hand-cut dogwood pattern sound holes.  it is one of two prototypes that he never put into production because they were too time intensive.  i was lucky enough to acquire this one, with the help of my mother, while he kept the other one (which ended up on ebay some years ago and sadly escaped my bids to be shipped to a buyer in england).  the one of the left is by jack lyle of waynesville, nc (also, now deceased).  this one is made from spalted wormy maple and has a quilted maple back and a mahogany fret board.  where the sanguinette has a lovely, mellow voice, the lyle has a bright, cheerful one.

as i began assembling all of my dulcimers in one place in my home (until now, they've always been scattered throughout the house - tucked in closets, under beds, displayed on shelves, in cabinets and on walls), i realized that i had quite a few more than i thought i did. thirty-six, to be exact. unless there are others lurking about that i don't remember owning...

the most recently acquired, and the most unusual, is this mandolin-dulcimer hybrid by eric holland of dark star guitars in eastern kansas.  eric started by deconstructing a pre-1895 bowl-back mandolin by luigi ricca, then completely rebuilding and restructuring it into a new walk-about style dulcimer.  his workmanship is superb and the sound is amazing!  i can hardly wait to get acclimated to its nuances and subtle differences from a traditional dulcimer, at which time i'll record something with it and post it here on my blog.

meanwhile, as i get them each photographed and documented, i am going to start a dulcimer page on this blog that will chronicle my collection in the coming months. look for it in the tabs at the top of the page.  and as the pain in my foot decreases and i am able to focus on my stitching, i have a couple newly started projects on my workbench that i will be sharing in the coming weeks as well...

namaste'

a little holiday cheer

imagine my surprise when confronted with a rather large, unusually shaped box this afternoon at the post office, arriving from an interweb quilting friend down in kentucky. surprise transformed quickly into delight once i opened the box and found this beautiful old mountain dulcimer nestled inside.a plethora of golden packing peanuts! she obviously knows my passion for these amazing instruments. i am enriched and filled with gratitude by such a kind and generous gift from this incredible lady...

you can see how it was made in the traditional manner, using fence staples as fret wires...and where old frets had fallen out and been replaced. i can only imagine what this beauty sounds like given that the fretting is virtually all over the place. ha!

hand carved friction tuning pegs planted in a sculpted headstock. no grand grace and charm in the construction here. this is a down home, lovingly crafted instrument that invites you to speculate as to its history. possibilities spin out into eternity, spiced with romance and joyful gathering around the hearth!

the conundrum now is whether to restore this glorious wounded bird and help her to sing again by repairing a crack on the back soundboard, refinishing her, and adding a new fret board complete with properly intoned frets, or to leave her aging grace and charm in place and allow her silence to speak volumes in our dreams? i think i'll let her rest and settle in to her new home for a while and see what she whispers in the quiet hours of the night...

namaste'

awesome crap this way ---->

what better way to spend a hot day than digging through someone else's crap in hopes of finding a treasure or two? it's one of my favorite ways to waste away a day off. and what better way to help your neighbors dig their way out of ending up on the next episode of hoarders? at least until it's their turn to help you do the same next month...

of course, the only sure way to keep yourself from becoming the next hoarders poster child is to make of list of what it is you are actually in the market for...and stick to it like a three legged fly to a dingy fly strip dangling in the hot summer sun! let's all practice now....say it with me....no. one more time...with feeling this time...NO!

of course, when i stumbled across this little vintage 1940's or 50's silvertone mandolin last saturday, my lips just couldn't seem to form the word. what's that? twenty five dollars, you say? (looks in my wallet stuffed with tens and twenties) all i got left is this one lonely old twenty dollar bill. would you take that? you will? awesome!

of course, all the way home i'm thinking: let's see...appalachian dulcimer, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, cigar box guitar, diddley bow, zither, lyra harp, jam stick...and some as yet to be identified doubled 2 stringed zither-ish thing... yep! it's time to add mandolin to that playlist! ack! it's a sickness! oh yeah...that's my story and i'm sticking to it!

funny, too, cuz i just received (amongst other treasures from my folks) a new book for my birthday yesterday: constructing a bluegrass mandolin, by roger siminoff. it's considered the mandolin builder's holy grail and is my latest addition to luthier books in preparation of my desire to begin building dulcimers, banjos, guitars and mandolins in the golden years of my retirement (yeah, yeah...that's still a couple decades off in the foggy distance...but a boy can dream, can't he? not to mention that i now also have that mighty fine 1960 international harvester pick up to take all those wonderful folk instruments to festivals and street fairs in. add a vintage suit, bow tie and pair of suspenders and i'll be ready!). woohoo! old age, ready or not, here i come!

namaste'

say hello to my little friend

i've been accused of owning too many sewing machines. but i simply couldn't resist adding one more to my arsenal. i have always wanted one of these little singer featherweight machines but just never seemed to come across one that i just couldn't live without (i.e., one that was actually affordable!). then one day i was lurking around the back alleys of ebay when i found a little beauty that was still sitting at $150 with only 8 minutes to go. sure, he was a little dirty (but hey, i have lots of elbow grease for that) and he was missing a few of his attachments (a quick excavation in the treadle machine's drawers turned out quite a few 221 attachments) and he still have 8 minutes to go. if you have ever travelled through ebay, then you know a lot can happen in 8 minutes. so, with nervous fingers, i punched in a bid of $175.52 and held my breath.

okay...so i didn't actually hold my breath. i walked away and assumed i would not get it since most of these machines sell for upwards of $350. imagine my surprise and delight when my smart phone dinged and informed me that i was the proud new daddy of my very own little featherweight!

he arrived today and i quickly set to work with that elbow grease and got him all spiffed up. he runs like a dream, so no adjustments were needed there! i look forward to a long and adventurous relationship! now i just have to figure out his name...

namaste'

things gathered

i am always intrigued by the things we collect. be they for inspiration, function, or simply because we feel an emotional attachment to them. even more interesting is how we display, use and alter them. it can be something as simple as arranging them on a straw sushi mat. wrapping it in rubber bands. or simply allowing it to dry out and crack and then see what interesting re-imaginings result.

sometimes function and form come together to beautiful effect. these hand-carved indonesian printing blocks are a perfect example. they create wondrous markings on cloth. yes. but they are beautiful in their own right, simply gathered together. displayed. admired. i can't get enough of these delightful little gems...whether or not i actually find time to use them as they were intended or to simply admire them.

still other collections offer vignettes of simple charm, like these dishes. gathered together with beautifully bound books filled with words that are meant to inspire. to instruct. to mark thoughts. for me, one of the small pleasures that rivals the tactile quality of aged fabric is the sent and sound of an old book. it doesn't really even matter what the volume is about...or even if it is in a language that i understand. just the feel of the leather cover. the slightly musty smell of the yellowed papers. the dry, age-ridden sound of the pages. the memories whispered quietly in the text of bygone eras and long dead authors. there is such a romantic cloud that hovers when enjoying an old book!

whatever it is that inspires you in your collecting habits, there is a decided pleasure that things gathered provide for us... i don't believe i will ever grow weary of reacquainting myself with my collections.

namaste'