You might judge, from this installment of "50 Years A Luthier" that the mid-1990s was a varied and interesting time in my life.  Frankly, it's all been something of an adventure!

Before Sympitar #3 got taken away by the Brazilian collector it got some use by my sometime alter-ego, Big Blue Harold. Big Blue, shown here with his musical partner, The Blues-Bird of Happiness (brandishing her Suzalyne as if to ward off angry guinea-fowl!), is one of the biggest of the Big Blue singers. Unfortunately, this black and white photo doesn't do justice to their blueness.
This musical power-duo, known as The Blues Monsters, is most famous for their smash hit, "I Used To Be A Hippie". Here's a sample of that dynamic lyric:

"Oh, I used to be a Hippie,
my bed was full of bugs,
Yes, I used to be a Hippie, Baby, my bed was full of bugs;
But now I've started wearing underwear,
Almost completely given up recreational drugs!"

They don't write 'em like that any more!! 

 

For some years when we lived in Vermont, I was part of a Vermont Council on the Arts program called the "Crafts in the Schools" program. I discovered I loved making instruments with kids. When we moved to the west coast, I used that experience to get accepted in Santa Cruz County's "SPECTRA" arts-in-the-schools program. For several years in the early 1990s I did workshops in local schools. It was a great way to help pay the bills and spread musical instrument building love, while trying to get my own instrument-building "business" off the ground in a new part of the world.

 

This wonderful class of 6th-graders at the Quail Hollow School in Ben Lomond (CA), loved making these cardboard banjos with shish-kabob-skewer frets and fishing-line strings. They especially loved decorating them, as can be seen in the close-up of the "Betty Boop Banjo".
Once I began getting orders for my own creations (and repair work) I decided to leave the program, so I could focus my energies more completely on building instruments for clients. I do miss getting to hang out with kids, but as you can imagine, it was a LOT of work to pull something like this off, and I really wanted to spend time developing my own art/craft.

 

The Guitarangi da Gamba

This was the first of a couple of commissions in the mid-late 1990s that attempted to combine aspects of guitar and viol or violin family. Carved redwood top, flat Bigleaf maple back. Lots of sympathetic strings. To be perfectly honest, I don't think it's possible to make an acoustic instrument that really works like a fine violin-family instrument and can also have the full tone of a fine guitar when plucked; the physical properties needed kind of contradict each other. But I managed at least to make something that sounded interesting (even beautiful), and looked really cool! If one has an open mind about what something should sound like (and I've been accused of having such an open mind that my brain has fallen out!!), you might even say it worked!