I spent much of this past weekend making and getting to know this flute.
For our upcoming 19th wedding anniversary, my dear wife gifted me with a seat in Tim Spotted Wolf's Flute Carving Workshop this last weekend. Tim and Wood Artistian Eve Abreu hold the workshop at Eve's studio "Ravenwood" in Bridgton.
This is Seabhac ("Hawk".) I carved Seabhac into the foot of this flute. Hawks are quite special to me. We have several hawks here on our land whom I watch (and who watch us.) They teach me a lot.
This is the saddle of the flute. On this style of flute it is more than decoration, it is necessary to the proper airflow. The first saddle that I made during the workshop was supposed to be Dobhran ("Otter".) I don't work well carving in three dimensions and so as Beth said when I brought it home...it looked more like an ill dinosaur than it looked like an Otter. :)
For the replacement pictured above, I took a small piece of the wide pumpkin pine boards that we removed from the 1789 Federal Home that stood on this land for more than 200 years before the fire in 1995 and I carved and sanded it down to a correctly sized saddle. On top of this I placed a piece of real ivory that we also salvaged from the keys of the old player piano that was also destroyed by the fire. I scrimshanded Doire ("Stag") into the ivory and he looks wonderful. This saddle fits the flute better, has much more meaning for me and sounds even better than the Prehistoric Otter that I carved in the workshop did!
2 comments:
That is a beautiful flute. I imagine that each time you play you will think of its creation.
Sweet! Nice job...very impressive. Can't wait to hear you play it!
Timmmmaaayyyyyyyyyy
Post a Comment