It is hard to say why, but this is one of my favorite images of the guitar. This bench is one of two side-by-side in the shop facing due east, and the morning light just streams in, lighting up the shop brilliantly when you arrive with your second cup of coffee, ready to go another day. The shop is totally quiet. The angle and length of the shadows confirm it to be a winter morning, and it is assuredly very cold outside. The light is pure white, not yellow, as it comes down through crystal-clear air just arrived fresh from Canada, perhaps drawn south by the cyclonic tail end of a “Nor’ Easter” that came through a day or two before.  And this is real full-spectrum white light – nothing missing. In the summer, the morning light comes from way over to the left, and it is yellow-orange.

This body and grills are painted two different black finishes, the body being medium gloss and grills contrasting subtly with a softer matte finish. Something about the way it catches the light is entrancing, the way its complex fine sinuous curves appear stark and strong, like a dream ready to pounce. I wouldn’t be surprised if it suddenly started to undulate like some awakening deep-sea creature, and lift itself off the bench, fluttering slowly back and forth over the benches, facing the windows and the sun, breathing in the light.

To me there is hope in this image. The starkness of the black-and-white contrast in a barely color image conveys strength, and solidity despite the complex delicacy of the grills, and the sense that something important actually got done the day before. But it is obvious that there is important work still waiting to be done. The body by itself is incomplete, needing attention. Add a neck and from this drawer, and a bridge and headstock from the opposite bench, slip it all together, close the headstock lever to tension the strings, and it is time for them to wake up and start a new day! Guitars do need their sleep, but they also have work to do.

Visible in the shadows to the right is the side of one of the grill mold boxes.  Visible on it and on the newspaper all around are the signature black drips of do-it-yourself carbon-fiber and black-tinted epoxy. In the left rear, the beam of light comes between two vertical spools of carbon fiber yarn, one of 4K tow ( 4,000-strand yarn), and the other of 8K tow, for filling narrow and wide mold traces respectively when laying up a new grill.

This is a very good way to start a work day.