Spiritual Lutherie

by Raphael Weisman

Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly, Volume 9 #3, 1981 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1997



We are all, in some way, the samurai warriors of today. Our weapons are our tools, our disciplines and skills are our crafts, and our aim is the refining and perfecting of ourselves as artists, as craftspeople, and as human beings. I am becoming more and more aware of my quest, of my journey in this field, and only a small amount of it really has to do with making instruments.

I see life as a university, a school, the school of the soul where we come to learn as much as we can in a brief spell. This world is the world of the physical, the material, the world of money and nature. It is here that we can learn the most and the fastest because this world offers us an opportunity to experience. And it is through experience that we grow in consciousness, in awareness, and in form. We are the molders of our experience, and through the process of experiencing, we learn. Through learning and refining, we grow.