Woodcarving and creating inlaid mosaics has been my passion for many years. Hyde Park in Chicago provides my earliest memories. At an early age we moved to a house in the country near the Indiana Dunes, a beautiful area. Near our house were several large willow trees which would provide me with soft carving wood as branches would fall occasionally. Indiana University was where I studied trumpet, carved wood, and spent too much time on the bicycle exploring the winding roads of southern Indiana. More importantly, it was where I met my wife, Becky, a horn player.

Some of my early jobs, aside from washing dishes, were working in several east coast bicycle shops, building tracker pipe organs for a small company, playing in orchestras in Nicaragua, Mexico and now Rockford, Illinois.

A slow, morphing process saw me change from a wood carving trumpet player to a violin making violist. Many summer courses at the “Violin Craftsmanship Workshop” at the University of New Hampshire helped me improve my violin restoration skills. Violin making and restoration come with centuries of traditional methods and styles.

As much as I love these traditions I also love creating things from wood with no “rules”.  Almost everything that comes out of my workshop is absolutely one of a kind. The exception to that derives from my method of cutting pieces for a mosaic. If, for example, there are three basic woods in the mosaic I will have three versions of the pattern to be used in similar projects.

I love to see  wood recycled. Much of my shop furniture and cabinets are made from a useless garage that needed to be torn down. Most of my  non-musical projects are functional things with an artistic twist. You are invited to enjoy the Gallery.

Home Page Drawing provided by my daughter, Leah Asher