Mandolin maker ‘demystifying’ craft
In the bowels of his Christchurch home, Davy Simpson entertains his unique hobby – hand-crafting mandolins.
A serial tinkerer and maker, Simpson is one of more than 40 craftspeople who will fill the Arts Centre of Christchurch as part of the inaugural Necessary Traditions festival, kicking off this weekend and running until November 17.
Touted as a celebration of skills of the hand and ‘‘creating what we need from what we have’’, the festival is the first of its kind, attracting artisans from around the world.
The Scotsman, who moved to Lyttelton with his family 10 years ago, said he was looking forward to ‘‘demystifying’’ the creation of crafted goods.
‘‘A friend of mine lent me a guitar held together with skateboard grip tape at the back. I was sitting tinkering with it and half an hour later it was pieces strewn across the ground,’’ he said.
‘‘That really demystified the whole process of building an instrument for me, realising it’s basically a box with strings, albeit a nice-looking and well-made box.’’
Simpson has since made four instruments from recycled and collected wood. Two were made of maple sourced from Sir Miles Warren’s Governors Bay property Ohinetahi. Attendees of the festival can see Simpson working on his fifth.
‘‘Once you get a name as someone who collects interesting bits of timber, people just drop off stuff outside the house. The maple from Ohinetahi I had drying for about five years,’’ he said.
Restricted to mandolin-work outside of office hours, and often when the children were asleep, Simpson said one instrument could take about six months, or 100 hours.
Festival organiser Juliet Arnott said the festival was about ‘‘bringing these processes and skills into the public eye, and celebrate that these people exist, carrying on skills that may otherwise be lost’’.
The festival starts tomorrow with events running Saturday and Sunday from 10am until 5pm.
‘‘Over the weekend craftspeople will set up throughout the Arts Centre and people can spend as much time as they like watching and talking those creating,’’ she said.
A week of guest speakers and workshops will follow.
‘‘There is something quite magical about seeing materials transformed in front of you, and that’s what we are hoping to bring to Christchurch,’’ she said.