It has taken me a couple of weeks to recover from the school year. Just enough time, really, to get ready for the next round of projects: Project number one is my third trip to the VSA's Violin Makers' Workshop in Oberlin, and project number two is to teach a handful of my just-graduated students how to make, and apply, varnish. There just isn't enough time to include this in the actual curriculum.
I had initially thought this would be a fun, casual little summer thing, but as I was getting ready for it I found out it is a lot like, well, teaching a class. Supplies and materials have to be assembled and/or ordered. A schedule has to be drawn up. The students have to be informed of what's expected of them. In other words, the only difference from four weeks ago is that I don't have to do the drive to and from Red Wing, they do.
Living, as we do, in Minnesota, I thought it prudent to provide shelter for the varnish, which after all has to be cooked -- outdoors --for a hundred hours. (There can be a multitude of weather changes here in a hundred hours!) To this end, I built a little varnish house. Since my own house is also rather small, the varnish shelter is made to be assembled and disassembled in under a minute, and to fold up flat. If this whole violin making thing doesn't work out, I could always shoot for a career with the design team of IKEA.
There again, maybe not.
I had initially thought this would be a fun, casual little summer thing, but as I was getting ready for it I found out it is a lot like, well, teaching a class. Supplies and materials have to be assembled and/or ordered. A schedule has to be drawn up. The students have to be informed of what's expected of them. In other words, the only difference from four weeks ago is that I don't have to do the drive to and from Red Wing, they do.
Living, as we do, in Minnesota, I thought it prudent to provide shelter for the varnish, which after all has to be cooked -- outdoors --for a hundred hours. (There can be a multitude of weather changes here in a hundred hours!) To this end, I built a little varnish house. Since my own house is also rather small, the varnish shelter is made to be assembled and disassembled in under a minute, and to fold up flat. If this whole violin making thing doesn't work out, I could always shoot for a career with the design team of IKEA.
There again, maybe not.
The Varnish House, folded
The Varnish House, one minute later
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