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\u2019t know how to reframe a window for maybe a salvage yard replacement \u2026 and judging by the plastic ones, neither did my predecessor who I\u2019d bought the place from. Ignorance, of course, isn\u2019t always bliss.<\/p>\n
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\u2026.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n
The thing is, I don\u2019t really want to be a guitar\/banjo salesman. For one thing, they\u2019re 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\u2019d take the leap. But I doubt it. Poverty might just be the true mother of invention. And I\u2019m no longer starving. Anyone out there needs a few banjos to make their neighbors miserable, you know where to find me. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019t know how to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[7477,7652,7653],"class_list":["post-19886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-banjo-building","tag-poverty-is-the-mother-of-invention","tag-stained-glass-addict"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19887,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886\/revisions\/19887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}