You Can Find Good Help
Every once in a while a person will contact me asking if I need an apprentice or if I will help them make a banjo. The first person to really work out in the shop was Michael Ismerio. Because Michael is a good friend, I traded him hour for hour. He worked for an hour for me and I helped him with his project for an hour. Michael ended up making two banjos in the shop, a banjo each time he committed to a chunk of time.
For me it is great to have a person around watching and learning, because it helps me in my learning new processes of making a banjo. I can do something that is more time consuming than it needs to be for a good long time if need be. But as soon as somebody is watching me as I do that same action, It generally gets improved on the spot. Michael helped me get more organized in a big way. This year rumor has it that Michael will be the first person from out west to call a dance at Clifftop!! Check out his website if you like http://www.michaelismerio.com
For the last few months I have had Reed student Nicholas Arms in the shop helping out. Nick is an art/biology major at Reed and he has experience as an international biology photographer. He is a self proclaimed amphibian lover. Nick has attained a sponsorship to go to Papau New Guinea this summer to count and photograph a rare New Guinea amphibian, with his buddy who shoots travel documentaries. Crazed fools, they just naturally come my way!! They say the most dangerous part of traveling to New Guinea in the last plane you hop on that takes you to the island. Apparently in New Guinea, they don’t believe in mechanical inspections. If a plane goes down, well that’s just what the stars wanted. Good enough…
Anyway, Nick was great to have around, he can pretty much do anything well after you show him how to do it once. That is the kind of talent a shop likes to have around. Here are pictures of Nick and the banjo he made for himself. He is welcome back anytime… I mostly like to run the shop solo, but every once in awhile when the right person comes along, a new hand is welcomed on deck.
