Cello Lamp!

One of the best parts about having hired Robyn as my assistant at the violin store is that I am free to tackle projects just because I want to.  Having another luthier around who can do repairs has been almost magical.  I can leave a pile of rental instruments on the floor by my bench with a note saying they need to be cleaned up and put away, and when I come back the next day it's happened!  I'm not drowning in work every minute.  Which means now when I have an idea to make something that is purely for fun I can occasionally indulge instead of looking wistfully from the workbench all the time and wishing I could flex more creative muscle.

So I made two things for the new teaching studio space we are expanding the store into just to make it more fun.

Behold the cello lamp!

I wish I did not own as many broken cellos as I do.  Many a sad, sad rental story behind them.  (We no longer rent cellos because my heart couldn't take it anymore and it was getting expensive.)  Anyway, this was a 3/4 size cello with a giant back crack that really couldn't be fixed in any affordable manner, so I glued it shut enough with Titebond and then merged the whole instrument with a $17 lamp I found at Target.  I removed the fingerboard, drilled a hole in the top at the base of the neck joint, and ran the cord up through there and along a channel I cut all the way up the neck.

The only truly tricky part was getting the top piece of the lamp to fit securely at the top of the scroll, and I wound up running a whole extra piece of pipe through it but had to get it bent to the proper angle so it would stand straight when viewed from the side.  Luckily the electrician in the store across the street had a gadget for bending conduit pipes and was able to pop my lamp piece into the correct shape in a matter of seconds.  Anyway, I think it looks super cute, and now this cello gets to live on in some new fashion instead of ending up in a garbage heap (which is too depressing).

My other moment of purely for fun violin store prop creation was my 'bow-quet.'

Most people don't notice right away that all the stems in the vase are actually violin bows.


I have an inordinate number of broken bows that I will eventually think of enough creative uses for to justify keeping them, but this was the first chance I've had to do much of anything with finding them a new use.  My kids want to make bow-quets too with their own flowers, so this summer I might give them each a stack of sticks and a vase and let them go to town.


There were probably wiser uses of my time, but what's the fun of having ideas if you don't occasionally get to try them out?  Besides, it's my name on the window, and if the shop is going to represent me, it needs reflect my personality.  I'm proud of that cello lamp, and the bow-quet makes me smile.  This summer I may buckle down and see if I can finish the coat rack I have in the closet.  It has violin and cello scrolls for the hooks, but I wasn't able to focus enough to get it done when I had the idea for it back when Ian was still deployed in Iraq.  But he's home now!  And surely he wants to use all that Army Major expertise on helping me with yet another goofy project.

(He will, too.  Because he loves me, crazy projects and all.)

Mother's Day and Movies

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! 

Mine was the best ever (with the possible exception of the first one I got to spend as a mother with a five month old baby Aden in my arms, because there is nothing quite like certain firsts).  It was a day filled with lots of nice moments and bookended with movies.

My kids made me breakfast in bed, which as sweet as it was, actually put me in an uncomfortable quandary. 

They have breakfast in bed down to a kind of science, where they know to clean up the kitchen as part of the present, and they give thought to what might be too messy (for instance, they always serve me water in a water bottle to avoid spills).  This morning they served me this:

That's a bowl of clementines all peeled, and a couple of slices of something we call a David Eyer Pancake (that they baked themselves) along with an overabundance of powdered sugar on the side to sprinkle on it.  (There is also the aforementioned water bottle, a little bouquet of things from our front garden, and the appropriate silverware and a napkin all on a tray that belonged to my grandmother.  This is several steps up from when Aden was three and she served me an uncooked egg in the shell with a fork a flower.)

So what was the quandary?  Well, I'm doing 30 days again of no grains, dairy, legumes, or sugar.  I fell off that 'paleo' diet wagon a couple of months ago and my weight started to creep back up and my headaches returned.  I miss bread and cheese and chocolate but I can't take the headaches anymore.  I want to do a whole month off of those items again and then experiment with adding things back one at a time so I can pinpoint what my problem might be.  I'm on Day 13.  And my adorable children specially cooked me a meal of flour mixed with milk and garnished with pure sugar.  Do I choose my own self-imposed food rules, or create a Mother's Day exception?

I really agonized.  And then I told them I couldn't eat it.  I thanked them, and ate the clementines, and then asked if I could feed the David Eyer Pancake to them instead, which turned out to be fun.  I haven't lifted a fork to any of their mouths in years, so they pretended they were little birds and each took turns having bites until the plate was clean.  Then Aden made me an omelet--with a tiny bit of cheese.  That I decided to make an exception for because come on.  (Cheese was the first thing I was going to add back into my diet anyway, so why not.)

I also got some amazing gifts:

Quinn made me a tissue flower, Mona let me have the duct tape 'angel dragon' she made a couple of weeks ago that I've been admiring, and Aden bought a watch from Target and replaced the band with one she crocheted herself.  They all pitched in to make the card.  I don't even know how to describe how much I love all of this.

Next we sat on my bed and folded laundry while watching episodes of Phineas and Ferb.  (We call these "Fold Phineas and Ferb Parties" and it makes laundry a pretty enjoyable event in our house.)

Then I made all the kids get out of my bed for a while and gave some thought to what I would like to do that would be just for me for a change.  And I picked archery.  I took archery lessons back in 2005 just because it was always something I wanted to try, and I loved it.  Aden used to come with me in her pretty little dresses and help collect my arrows out of the hay bale targets at the public park and it was so cute.  But then Ian got deployed and that was the end of that.  My bow and arrows have been gathering dust ever since.

Using the bow stringer

Until today!  But it almost didn't happen just because it had been so long I didn't remember how to string up my recurve bow.  I turned to YouTube where several different people demonstrated stepping through the bow and bracing one of the limbs against a leg, etc. and none of it rang a bell.  I tried to copy what they were doing, but no luck.  Then I found a different guy who said the bracing against the leg method was the wrong way to go and he was leaving one end of the string slipped down a ways, bending the bow, and sliding that end all the way up into place.  That looked more familiar, but still no luck.  After about half an hour of messing with my bow and trying to jog my memory and getting ready to give up, I looked at one more video and found a guy who said what I really needed was a bow stringer.  A bow stringer....  That method involved hooking a string to each end of the bow and standing on it to pull the limbs far enough to slide one of the ends where it should be.  THAT was starting to look familiar.  So I went to my arrow quiver and emptied it out and I'll be damned if I don't own a bow stringer!  Ha!  The second I saw it, it all came back to me.  Nothing to it.

So off to the park!  My kids loved it there.  Aden and Quinn retrieved my arrows, Mona collected broken bits of balloon from around the targets and created some pretend cooking game with them.  The dog even had fun running free until it was time for me to shoot and it seemed safer to put him back on the leash.  I was pleased to discover my aim is actually not bad considering how long it's been.  I think next time I'm feeling down I will head back out to the range to clear my head.  There's something nice about concentrating on an activity that is simple but not easy.

Perfect weather, perfect company, and I got a chance to do something with no purpose other than it's enjoyable.  Can't ask for a better Mother's Day than that.





After the park we got the kids a pizza and left Aden in charge of everyone while Ian and I went to a movie.  We've been experimenting more often with leaving them on their own for short stretches and they do fine.  It still makes me nervous and will take some getting used to, but the idea that we have the freedom to escape to a movie from time to time is a wonderful new thing.

Now, the movies at each end of my day could not have been more different.  In the morning I watched Melancholia on my laptop, and in the afternoon Ian and I went to see The Avengers in the theater.  Melancholia is about the world ending with no hope of saving it and some question about whether it even matters.  The Avengers is about saving the world and it's all very self-important.  Melancholia moves in a slow and deliberate way, with music by Wagner to imbue everything with a gorgeous sense of tragedy, and it made me cry.  The Avengers was all explosions and smashy smashy cool things to see and it made me laugh.  Melancholia was calm as the world ended.  The Avengers was frantic as it was saved. 

I don't know if I can recommend Melancholia because it's haunting, and once you've seen it you can't unsee it.  I don't want to be responsible for someone else having to ponder elements of it the way I seem to be.  It's beautiful, but painful.  The Avengers I would recommend purely for Hawkeye shooting aliens with arrows--sometimes without even looking (man, do I need practice!)--but also the Hulk hitting things and Robert Downey Jr being born to play Tony Stark.  It's all so silly, but the best kind of silly.

My day also included cooking with my kids and my husband, watching my kids make things out of modeling chocolate, walking with them to Target, playing games with them on the computer, seeing them bike, hearing them laugh, and just being proud that I have any connection to these lovely little people at all.  My life with them isn't the extremes I saw in either movie.  It's just right.  And I'm the luckiest mom in the world.

Creativity in a Commercial World

Thanks for all the feedback about violin fittings.  Between the comments and direct emails the opinion was overwhelmingly for rosewood, with a few for ebony and almost no one speaking up for boxwood.  It actually caused me to order more sets of both rosewood and boxwood, because every individual piece is different in coloration and I decided I want a few more options before I choose.

Here's what it got me thinking about, though: As a luthier (or an artist, or a writer, or a designer, or a scientist....) who wants to make a living at it there is a constant tension between what one wants to do and what will sell. 

People ask me occasionally if I would make a violin in an unconventional color like blue.  I could, but someone would have to pay me for it up front because I don't think it would sell.  Classical players tend to be conservative in their tastes, and if you play in an orchestra there could actually be a clause in your contract about the appearance of your instrument.  But the truth is, I don't want to make a blue violin.  It doesn't appeal to me.  Maybe it will someday, but not today.  So would I build one if you paid me?  Probably. 

Is that selling out?  Not really.  It's a challenge to work within different parameters.  I would find a way to do it in a manner that I still found satisfying.  However, if a job completely offended all my sensibilities I would turn it down.  For instance, there is no price at which I would carve swastikas into my instruments.

So as much as I was leaning against rosewood fittings I'm reexamining the idea after all of your input.  The only person who shared my thoughts on fittings for my new violin, interestingly, was Aden.  She has a good sense of color and design and I trust her taste, so I asked what she thought.  She studied my violin for a minute against each of the tailpieces I had at home and then said she understood why everyone was attracted to the rosewood because it was pretty in and of itself and it did go with the varnish.  She liked the rosewood, but thought the boxwood was not as distracting.  This is what I was thinking, and is probably why most of the violins I've seen out there built by Stradivari and comparable people currently have boxwood fittings on them; so you will look at the actual lines of the instruments and not have your eye drawn too quickly to details.  I want people to look at the violin (which I made) as opposed to the fittings (which I didn't).  Boxwood is understated.  Rosewood is showy.

However, I also want this instrument to sell.  It should have a home and be out playing in the world or else what good is it?  If the general consensus is rosewood, and that feature is enough to give my violin an edge over another with a buyer, then it makes sense to use rosewood.  In the end the violin is not for me, so in some ways my preference doesn't matter, even if it's my work.

Klein viola 2008

Building an instrument for a competition affects my choices, too.  The last time I entered an instrument I made the mistake of using a viola I'd built to amuse myself because it was the only instrument I had available.  If I was going to be at the convention, I felt I should enter something and get feedback from the judges.  But this was not the right instrument to enter.  It has mismatched pegs because I liked them all and couldn't decide.  The varnish color is too bright with questionable shading elements.  The rib heights are extra tall because the viola was for my personal use and my neck can handle it.  I carved a little flower on the back of the scroll.  All of this made me happy while I was creating it.  It did not make judges happy.  Not at all.

Quirky Klein Scroll

But there is a big difference between what judges like and what regular people like.  People like unusual touches and unique elements on their instruments.  They want things to be special.  Judges just want things to be correct, and you have to earn the right to branch out creatively or deviate from the standard.  And since Stradivari set the standard, it's dauntingly high.

The first instrument I ever entered in a Violin Society competition was a violin on which I used a combination of potassium dichromate and tannic acid to create the ground color under the varnish.  It gives the wood an aged look that I kind of liked.  People loved it.  Judges hated it.  Every judge said, "Oh, potassium dichromate?" and shook his head.  But that instrument only took a month to sell.  Whatever judges are judging versus what people are judging can certainly be different.

I've been going back and forth in my mind about this question with my writing as well.  Fellow writers try to console me as I'm getting buried in rejections that it has less to do with writing and more to do with business.  It doesn't matter if an agent likes my book, it matters if an agent can sell my book.  And selling books is becoming a very complicated business indeed with everything about the industry in flux, so I don't know what to make of it.  I don't want to write books while thinking about what sells.  I just want to write good books.  I feel if I ever start writing based on what other people want then I shouldn't bother, but is it really more personal than building violins?  Maybe what the judges in that industry want is different from what people want anyway, and I should just bypass the system somehow.  I need to think about that more.

In the meantime, I'm getting my new violin ready to play.  This one is constructed by the book because I want useful feedback.  I do not want anyone distracted by color or creative carving or pegs that are fun, I just want to know what things I might be doing well and how I can improve.  Will rosewood vs. boxwood affect that?  I don't think so, but it's hard to say.

I like this violin and I'm looking forward to hearing it.  I like that it is simple and straightforward.  But I have some overly creative ideas that would probably make judges keel over and I plan to get to those soon.  Because some things you make to sell, and some things you just make because they must be made.  Stay tuned.  (And no, I didn't realize until I typed it that that was a pun.)

My two latest violins, all polished up!

I could use an opinion....

I finished polishing out my latest instrument the other day.  I built it with the idea in mind of entering it in the Violin Society of America (VSA) competition at their convention this fall in Cleveland.  These competitions take place every other year and luthiers from all over the world submit violin family instruments and bows for judging.  It's a great way to get feedback from experts about your work and see where you can improve.












(Isn't the back pretty?  Not the easiest piece of maple to work with, but I like the way it came out.)







This violin is one of two I started last spring and I am excited that I will finally be able to hear it soon.  But first I have to select fittings for it.  Fittings are most of the pieces you add to the instrument to actually make it playable (pegs, tailpiece, endbutton and chinrest) and they usually match in terms of wood, coloration, and style.

Ebony (black) is kind of the basic standard, so I originally figured I'd just do that.  But as the color on my violin developed during the varnishing process I started picturing rosewood instead.  I was all set to go with that today, but then I pulled out a tailpiece made of boxwood and now I'm kind of leaning that direction.  I'm not sure.  Anyone else feel strongly about one over another?

EBONY

ROSEWOOD

BOXWOOD

The Science of Praise

My kids had their annual science fair at school last week.  It's always crowded and busy and there is always a bake sale where we can buy a couple of cupcakes for the price it would cost me to make an entire batch of them better at home (but we buy some anyway because it raises money for some worthy cause plus apparently it's exciting to buy a treat at school).

Anyway, Quinn's kindergarten class all did planets, but since he's still only a K4 and not in school the whole day yet he was not part of creating any displays for the science fair.  He pointed out what the K5s did and he's looking forward to making something great next year.  Considering how organized he is with the blocks at the violin store I can only imagine what he'll do when he's given real work to display.

(He actually organized all the blocks into categories and then made a chart, so he's a serious kind of five year old.)

Aden's class had some entertaining displays, including one about the science behind why dropping a mentos into diet coke creates a geyser, and another that made soap bubbles filled with fog from dry ice that you could hold if you were wearing gloves.  Aden did a project on her own about vibration and I was really proud of her.  She created a nice poster and had lots of props for doing demonstrations including a slinky for simulating echos and her violin for making musical sounds.  I was impressed with how well she engaged people who came by her display and how clearly she explained her work.

And then there's Mona.  Aden can move me to tears and Quinn leaves me astonished, but Mona makes me laugh every day.  I love Mona.

I love all my kids, but Mona has a particularly lively role in our family.  In fact, when we split up for the first couple of days of spring break recently and I had just Aden and Quinn with me, it was sort of eerie.  Aden and Quinn are both polite, and quiet, and at the dinner table are very still.  They think carefully before they speak, and often don't speak unless they are spoken to.  I'd never really noticed how mature they really are because usually, fidgeting between them, is Mona.  Mona who can't keep her butt on a chair for a whole meal.  Mona who has no volume control.  Mona who likes to get a laugh but also doesn't want to be the center of attention, so she struggles with conflicting feelings of self-consciousness and pride and embarrassment mixed with a crazy sort of showmanship.  Mona is hilarious and life without her is much too orderly and dull.



So, Mona's science fair project was a display she worked on with three other kids about magnets.  Her primary contributions were the three pages of written information that she would read to people as they visited the display, and she also made 'metal detectors,' which were these little devices she created out of refrigerator magnets and popsicle sticks that could be used to pull iron filings out of a dish of sand.

It was wonderful to watch Mona work with both children and adults, happily sharing all she'd learned about magnets.  At one point I asked her if she'd like to take a break and get a treat from the bake sale, but she was more concerned about getting a chance to see her sister's vibration display on the floor above, which I thought was very sweet.

But the best moment of the science fair was when Mona read her whole report about magnets to some random mom and when she got to the end she looked up and asked, "Do you have any questions or compliments?"

Questions or compliments!  I suppose she meant 'comments' but Mona is more inventive with language than her siblings.  Aden and Quinn have large vocabularies and they are cautious about using words properly, which I think is great, but Mona has a large vocabulary too, she just plays fast and loose with it.

Questions or compliments.  Yes, Mona, I have several of each.

The Amazing Milwaukee Race!

Was, in fact, pretty amazing.  Most amazing was that out of 70 teams we came in 5th.  5th!  If we hadn't missed one of the clues we might have had a shot at 2nd place, which, being our team name, was in theory what we were going for.

(Me and Linda in our "Korinthian Violins & The Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra Team Up For Second Place!" T-shirts waiting at the starting point.)

But first things first:  You want to know what I packed, oh yes you do.  Because I like to be prepared but I am also a geek.  How much of a geek am I?  Well, the morning of the race I decided it would be fun to bring my Dr Who sonic screwdriver, but the batteries weren't working.  So I had to pack my SPARE Dr Who sonic screwdriver.  That's how geeky I am.

Because that could come in handy.  (Actually, it doubles as a pen, so maybe it could have.)  I also brought a Rubik's cube.  That only ever becomes useful if I need to keep other people's children distracted in public places for some reason, so I don't know why I always feel compelled to bring along a cube except that it makes me happy.  And happy is good, so why not.

The funny thing about doing the race with Linda is that I love her company and we get along well, but part of that is we think alike in many ways.  Too many ways to be helpful to each other in a team event where maybe a variety of skills might prove important.  We have too many of the same instincts.  For instance, we were both inspired to bring a compass and a fancy whistle.  And Linda approved of my bringing scissors, the sonic screwdriver, the cube, and asked if maybe we should have some twine which had also occurred to me, so I grabbed a thing of dental floss.  We used none of these things.  All we really needed were my bus tickets, some cash, her smart phone, a pencil and paper, and the snacks and water were nice but it's not like we were in the woods and couldn't have picked up something.  (In fact, one of our clues sent us into a grocery store and we got ourselves bananas.)  What we needed was someone with a different approach to substitution cyphers, but it was fun, we were never bored, and we had a great day.

Now let me tell you about the race: (And this is long, so seems like a good idea to add a jump here.)

Gearing Up

Tomorrow I'm running in Milwaukee's version of the Amazing Race--a scavenger hunt challenge like the one on TV but just around Milwaukee.  I am not really...what's the word?  Ready.

I was feeling fine until I got the final update from organizers giving us the address of the starting line.  There is an address, a map, and a photo of the building, and I still have no idea where it is.  Can you imagine when they are trying to obscure a location from me how I will fare?  Yeah.

My original thought when entering this race was that it would be fun to do with my husband.  We have complementary skill sets, so I always figured we'd be good at that kind of thing.  He never gets lost, understands bus routes, he's clever, and is familiar with parts of the city that I am not.  I am good at talking to strangers, like puzzles, and anyplace that might hire a string quartet for a wedding I've been inside of.  We have such a tag team approach to parenting that we don't get to do things together outside of the house as often as I'd like, so when I heard a local radio story several weeks back about the race I thought it would be like an all day date.  We checked our schedules, I got my assistant to cover for me at the store, and hired a babysitter.  We had no illusions about winning, it was just going to be a nice day out together, seeing our city and having fun.

But then the Army called.  The Army takes Ian away on my birthday.  The Army takes Ian away on our anniversary.  Apparently the Army has decided to come after just plain old fun days out now, because Ian is at Ft McCoy all weekend.

So!  I put out a call for alternates and got responses that ranged from "hell no" to "I'll be in Germany" to "I suppose if you absolutely can't find anyone...." and eventually my friend Linda said, "Why not?"

Linda is great.  She's the artistic director of the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra, and one of the funniest most interesting people I know.  We will have a great time.  We will lose!  But we will have a great time.  Her smart phone will be more of an asset to our team than I will, but that's okay.  I'll bring treats or something.

I actually had T-shirts made for us with both the violin store and mandolin orchestra logos on them, plus our names embroidered on the backs.  They look nice.  The name of our team is "Second Place" because that way no matter how we do we will be Second Place.  (And the worse we do the funnier that gets, so we're all set.) 

My biggest concern at the moment is my foot.  I seem to have plantar fasciitis and it's creating a lot of pain in my left heel.  I've been limping around a lot for months and it finally hit me a week ago that I was signed up for a RACE where I might need my FEET so I should maybe do something about it.  I've had this same foot pain before and it's one of those things where you fix it and then slowly revert to old habits and it returns.

My bad habit?  I'm attracted to crappy shoes.  I like those simple flat Keds-type sneakers with no arch support.  And they damage my feet, but I keep forgetting about that part.  So I picked up some decent running shoes and they are helping, but I'm tempted to go out and get a spare pair that are maybe a little tighter, except I know that's stupid to get new shoes and wear them in a race without breaking them in.  Hm.  (And you know why I eventually revert back to my bad habit?  Because running shoes are so impossibly ugly anymore I can't take it.  They look like strange cartoon space ships and make me feel stupid.)

The plan today is to charge my phone, gather things like bus tickets (yes we can use the bus) and a water bottle and whatever else might be useful into my backpack, and hope it doesn't rain too much tomorrow.  The weather is supposed to be nasty and cold, which means we will have on coats that cover up our cool new T-shirts, but we'll still have our Korinthian Violins caps, so that's something.

It will be fun!  Just hanging out with Linda will be fun even if we never find anything.  Wish us luck!