Everybody’s made a harp, but few will admit to it. I later heard that this harp appeared on a recording by the Hawaiian artist Sonny D.

The earliest drums that I made were these wooden headed conga drums. They were a cross between rhumba boxes and conga drums so you can call ‘em whatever you like.

The latest set of drums I made was this cocktail drum kit which I made for myself. A set of cocktail drums is an abbreviated space saving configuration of drums. They were popular during the days of larger playing ensembles where the drummer didn’t have much stage space nor a roadie to carry his kit.

I learned how to tight-rope walk from a book which was badly translated from French. The most instructional passage in Jean-Luc’s book was that there is only one rule you must remember about tight-rope walking. Do not fall.

Jean-Luc also suggested starting with a rope 3 meters off the ground. I set my rope up at four feet which provided a less thrilling yet more satisfying learning experience.

In the early fall of 1991, the artist Christo erected nearly eighteen hundred twenty-eight-foot diameter yellow umbrellas along a stretch of Interstate 5 in Southern California over the Tejon Pass. Geralyn and I were fortunate enough to join hundreds of other enthusiastic volunteers in working on the project.

More than thirteen hundred blue umbrellas were erected at the same time in a rice growing valley in Japan. The experience of working on such a wild and monumental project was terrific.

During December and January 2005 /2006 I worked with a small group of other Luthiers under the curatorship of master guitar builder Ervin Somogyi. We created a sixty foot long display located in a downtown Berkeley's art district. The display was a non-technical layman’s overview on the process of guitar building. The group allowed an entire window in the display to be dedicated to ukulele information.

Included in my historical and technical ukulele display, were the predecessors to the ukulele; the Portuguese "Braghina" and "Rajao", these were kindly on loan from Cool Hand Uke of Grass Valley, California. Andy Andrews of Santa Cruz was also kind enough to lend a wealth of associated Hawaiiana, sprucing up the display nicely.

Click on any section of the display to see an enlargement of that part!