The Pipers are Comin’ (again)

Heat. Cold. Heat. Cold. Mother Nature can’t seem to set her thermometer to the right temperature yet. We just had three beautiful warm days, in the 70s and 80s here (90s to 100s over the hill), and today the fog came in and it didn’t get up past 55.

I’m in the process of finishing up another of my “Memling” psalteries. Today, I polished the first of two and got it ready so I can start stringing it up, which I’ll do tomorrow. I want to have it all done for the Santa Cruz Art League 90th Birthday Art Fair this Memorial Day Weekend, May 23-24 (10-6pm each day). That’s me in the photo at the Art Fair Preview section of the Art League 90th Birthday reception with my newly completed small medieval-style harp.

One of my “long-term” projects, which is my final “Chapter  House” instrument, is a portative pipe organ. I’ve been working on test pieces for over a year now, and got several wood pipes of both hard and soft woods to make sweet “tooting” sounds. A few months ago, I found a self-published booklet on how to make small portative pipe organs. I purchased it and immediately started re-thinking my own designs.

I’ve now started on a complete new organ, in, of course, the medieval style, with 16 pipes tuned in a diatonic (major) scale. The pipe block (on the left in photo) is cut and sanded and laid out for drilling. I’m making new pipes (in clamps in photo), using the measurements from the book I got, all out of thin pieces of maple.

I do have a few other projects going (actually, 4 or 5), so the pipe organ will be filling in time as the glue or finish dries on my regular stringed instruments. However, I do want to have it completed before the year is over.

If any readers of this blog are in Santa Cruz on Memorial Day Weekend, stop by the Santa Cruz Art League’s 90th Birthday Celebrations and Art Fair, 526 Broadway, Santa Cruz. It’s just off Ocean Street, which is the main drive to the Beach and Boardwalk Amusement Park. I’m in Booth #1.

Again, onward through the fog.