IT'S OPEN STUDIOS TIME AGAIN!

Today was the reception for the big Open Studios Art Tour Preview Exhibition. Hundreds of arts and crafts enthusiasts and artists filled up the Santa Cruz Art League gallery and lobby, and it seemed there were hundreds more outside for the food, drinks, and entertainment. A good time was had by all! (The picture is me with my "Luttrell Harp" at the reception.)

My wife and I had a lot of fun seeing and talking to all our old friends and meeting new ones. It's a great event to catch up on everyone's past year of shows and new works. It's also a great place to network and learn about other shows and galleries, and even to get inspiration for new works. Just talking to other artists can trigger ideas.

The Open Studios Art Tour is the first three weekends in October. October 4-5 is for South Santa Cruz County, October 11-12 is for North Santa Cruz County (my area), and October 18-19 is the Encore Weekend for the entire county. (I'm open for Encore too.) Calendars/Artist Guides, with a map showing the locations of all the artists are available at many stores and galleries throughout the county. To find out where to purchase the calendar, or buy over the internet, go to the Santa Cruz County Cultural Council website at http://www.ccscc.org/. Be sure to visit the Santa Cruz Art League to see the Preview Exhibit, and you can see examples of nearly all the Open Studios artists. For Art League hours and directions, visit their website at http://www.scal.org/.

Then... come and visit me, see my studio, and purchase a fine piece of musical sculpture!

I'm Artist #234 in the Calendar/Artist Guide, at 147 Sacramento Avenue, Santa Cruz, California. My location is just off West Cliff Drive, just three blocks from Natural Bridges State Beach. Follow the big green Open Studios signs.

Epinette des Vosges

Time is just a-slippin' by. It seems that very soon I'll be getting everything ready to pack up for the Bellevue ArtsFair, then San Francisco, then Sausalito. I'm still trying to get a few more things done for the shows. I will have a new epinette des Vosges ready to go very soon. Like I've mentioned in previous installements, it's a small one, based on an 1850 5-string I found on the internet. Today I put the first coat of tung oil on it. I haven't thought about a name for it yet, but I'll think of one soon.

This epinette is 100% salvaged wood. It is a gorgeous flamed white oak that I resawed from a broken drop-leaf table, probably from the 1940s or 1950s. This is the second instrument I've made from this wood. I've got quite a bit left, so I'm sure there will be other completely different instruments coming later in the year.

A Whiter Shade of Pale (i.e., white oak)

That beautiful flamed white oak I was given last month is shaping up into two new instruments, both that I should be able to finish before I start running around getting ready for Summer craft shows and art festivals.

The psaltery (right) will be done first, within a week or two, since it doesn't require as much carving. The picture in the photo is one of dozens from the Spanish 13th century Cantigas de Santa Maria illuminated manuscript, this one showing people playing small trapazoidal psalteries. This image was my inspiration for creating the white oak psaltery shown in the photo. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, sponsored/funded by Alfonso X, is one of the greatest illumunated manuscripts from the 1200s, and it is also one of the most complete surviving "paper" works from that era. Most of the illuminations are of figures playing various instruments of that time. It is of incredible historical importance on the evolution of musical instruments in Europe

The other white oak instrument I'm currently working on is a small Epinette des Vosges. It is based on one that sold several years ago that I found on a musical instrument dealer's web site. It is reported to be from 1850, and the measurements given show it as being a very small instrument, barely 19 inches long. It is a board zither without a raised fingerboard. The frets are attached directly to the soundboard. This is an old style that dates back to the scheitholts of the 1600s. Frets on board zithers were either wire "staples" or wood (like on early Norwegian langeleiks). I, of course, used modern fret wire, but it is very small and similar in thickness to the wire staples used on the early board zithers.

There are a few more instruments I'm just getting started on, and I'll report on them as they start taking shape. There are also several new "types" of instruments and folk art waiting in the wings. In other words, they're still in the planning stages. Tune in later. Film at 11.

New Instrument, New (old) wood, Fire

Another Mountain dulcimer is nearing completion. I haven't named this one yet, but it will probably be named after a traditional folk song, like I did with Lily of the West and Anethea. It's a beautiful birdseye maple piece with salvaged purpleheart binding and a walnut fingerboard. Again, the shape is based on the J. Edward Thomas dulcimer housed in the Smithsonian Museum.

Last weekend, while attending an art exhibit reception at the Santa Cruz Art League (the 78th Annual Statewide Exhibit called "Poems Without Words: Contemporary Landscape Painters of California" running through June 29), the board president and his wife mentioned they had a broken gate-leg table they wanted to give me. I picked it up a couple of days ago and began resawing it yesterday. The wood is a gorgeous flamed white oak. There is enough for three or four large instruments and several smaller ones. I've already decided to use some for another epinette des Vosges and another dulcimer.

Serious time: California is dry already. It's barely June, and we already had one devestating fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and today another one has taken off in the community of Bonny Doon, just a half hour from where we live. It's now 9 pm and the last report puts the fire at over 300 acres and 1500 people have been evacuated. It is heavily forested, but also heavily populated. Many of our artist friends live in that area. There has been reports of structural damage, but it can't be confirmed if it's been homes or outbuildings. Our fingers are crossed that no one loses their homes and that the fog comes in to moisten the ground.