Diese Worte möchte ich gleich in englisch belassen.

My interest in wood and working with it began many years ago. As a young boy, I grew up across the street from a furniture manufacturer. I spent many a summer day under the shade tree of our front yard while the men sat enjoying the cool breeze during their lunch. Not only was I intrigued by their admiration for the wood they worked with but more so by the respect that they had for the wood.

Many years later I found myself working side by side in the same shop as these men that I admired. Knowing me from my childhood, they willingly took me under their wing and taught me the same admiration, respect and understanding that they as artisans carried in

their hearts. In these surroundings, not only an understanding but a connection flourished with the wood that I held in my hands. The gift that I know as flute making, was being nurtured in its infancy as I learned from these good men.
One day, on a Sunday, an older man came to visit me. He came with my grandmother Shirley to visit and to talk. He was a softspoken man, but his message was always direct and to the point. He had a way of knowing things. After a few hours of visiting, we paused for a cup of coffee and that’s when he said, “ Why aren’t you making flutes! It is what you are supposed to be doing with your life, a gift that you carry inside you waiting to share with the world.” He told me that not only did the flutes change people’s lives, but they would enhance mine as well. Seven days later I made my first flute.
It has been many years since that first flute. But my philosophy and my prayer concerning my flute making remains the same. While many strive to make flutes that play like clarinets, I wish only that my flutes connect with the Spirit of the one who plays it, just as my hands and my Spirit did as I carved it. And I ask that I be afforded the privilege to carve yet another and another and another. It is the gift of flute making that fulfills my life and renews my Spirit.

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