Learning Curves
When I first learned how to make stained glass at a night class up at the high school in Stanwoodopolis, my sole goal was to learn enough to make replacement windows for a couple of nailed on plastic sheets in my drafty shack on the South End. At the time I didn’t know how to reframe a window for maybe a salvage yard replacement … and judging by the plastic ones, neither did my predecessor who I’d bought the place from. Ignorance, of course, isn’t always bliss.
But a funny thing happened on my way to an Architectural Digest feature. I got hooked on stained glass. Those couple of windows fueled some sort of heretofore unknown passion and in the course of a few fevered months that curiosity into the backwaters of art design sunk its hooks completely. For a time I built panels on the floor of my bedroom in the attic but after stepping on half-built glass designs going to the bathroom for midnight pisses, it became apparent I needed a more formal studio. Or at least an addition to the shack. Which necessitated learning basic construction and carpentry. A small detour that led to a career in glass and a love of building, additions, outbuildings, furniture and eventually a two story house up on the hill above the shack. Life is full of surprises….
The glass addiction created a conundrum for me back then. It was expensive, this stained glass stuff. My panels got smaller and smaller trying to keep going without going broke. And so, ultimately I had to decide whether to try to sell some of these little windows or just quit outright, call it a day and be glad those plastic windows were closed in against the wind and the weather. Reluctantly, I became a salesman. Of sorts. And a capitalist. Of sorts.
The last few years I got entangled in a similar passion. It started when I remodeled a favorite banjo, upgrading parts, then decided to build one from scratch. Everybody, of course, needs more than one banjo. Maybe not five, which is what I ended up with after building a few more. And if that weren’t bad enough, I tried my hand at building acoustic guitars. I just finished the fifth one of those, a nice little maple body job with an unusual sycamore top, what I swear is my last one.
The thing is, I don’t really want to be a guitar/banjo salesman. For one thing, they’re not really that professionally made. Maybe half a dozen more and they might be. But I doubt it. Maybe if I was back in my starving artist mode I’d take the leap. But I doubt it. Poverty might just be the true mother of invention. And I’m no longer starving. Anyone out there needs a few banjos to make their neighbors miserable, you know where to find me.
Tags: Banjo Building, Poverty is the Mother of Invention, Stained Glass Addict