1 mins
MY SPACE
Lutherie
ALL PHOTOS JAMES HANSON
I’m from Kansas originally, and I trained as a violin restorer at the instrument repair programme in Red Wing, Minnesota. Then I came back to Kansas and found a job at a pipe organ building facility in the city of Lawrence, while I spent the evenings repairing stringed instruments. Eventually I opened my own shop, which I wanted to be a fullservice violin business. Lawrence has a college orchestra and local community ensemble as well as a lot of school pupils learning instruments. It’s also situated midway between Kansas City and Topeka, which both have a lot of musical activity going on.
The shop is spread over two floors of around 72 sq m each, and the workshop on the upper floor takes up around half that area. Downstairs we have another workshop for double basses, as well as space for retail and storage. We’ve actually outgrown the space we have, and I’d like to move to a facility with a larger space that can be used for recitals and education projects, where local groups can rehearse and possibly perform. I looked into buying an old theatre a while ago for that purpose, but it needed a lot of repair work and the upkeep and heating would have been too costly to keep it going. I’ve really bonded strongly with the old-time fiddle community round here, and developed great relationships with music directors in Topeka and Kansas City, so I’m sure there’s a lot we can do in the future.
With all the repair and restoration work, I don’t have much time for new making but I’ve been collecting wood ever since I was a student 20 years ago. I’ve also made connections with a lumberjack who’s scavenging nice wood from trees that are being destroyed by beetles. I love repairing bows as well, and even taught my mother how to do rehairs; it turned out she had a natural talent and one summer she got through almost 200!
INTERVIEW BY CHRISTIAN LLOYD
I love old American violins and I’m currently repairing one by A.B. Clark of Indiana. It’s nice, but since he made the top out of cedar, it’s picked up a lot of patches in its time.