I have been trying to take full advantage of all of the advice to stay indoors over the past few days. I am still teaching (virtually), but I do have more, much-needed time in the workshop, so my projects should finally get off the ground and maybe even get finishing in the next month or two! I have three guitars to build—two commissions for clients, and one for myself. I am hoping to have the two commissions finished by the end of April, and then get my own guitar finished for the end of June. Mine is going to be a bit of an oddball, but I’ll divulge more of those details in a future post. (Sign up for my newsletter if you are curious…). I have yet to actually assign these rosettes to specific guitars. All of the rosettes are inlayed into very similar cedar tops.
The first rosette is something very traditional. Mosaic tiles left over from the Fleta build with various stripes in black, white, green, and red.
The second rosette is much less traditional and inspired by my growing pile of little bits of leftover wood. There are 15 different woods in this rosette: ebony, ziricote, rosewood, purpleheart, ovangkol, walnut, butternut, lacewood, cherry, pear, padauk, maple (flamed, birdseye, spalted) and holly. Plus the dyed stripes.
The final rosette was a bit of a wild one. It started out as a traditional rosette, using more leftover tiles from the Fleta. But then I got a bit carried away last night with some sort of untamed creativity, and it changed dramatically. Still not sure exactly what I think about it, but I do like it. I am well aware that not everybody will (Craig doesn’t), but that is OK. It is a brutal juxtaposition of traditional and modern and is made of traditional mosaic tiles and stripes, and pieces of ziricote and holy.
I am playing with this idea of juxtaposition in my head for future rosette ideas. Maybe not all so harsh and obvious—perhaps there is a way to marry the two in a more elegant and subtle way… we shall see.
I kind of hope that my customers don’t like this one so that I can keep it! The guitar that I am building for myself is for a second CD project (more details coming soon) which plays with this contrast of tradition and modern.
Bracing is next. A whole lot of lattice for these three tops. But, with March Break and COVID-19, I should have the time to get all of those braces on in the next few days!
Thanks for reading, and hope that you are all staying healthy in these strange times.