What you see here is the product of much stress and the origin of new and colorful curse words. I am sure that all the handmade classical guitar rosette designs pictured on this page are fairly simple and easy to make compared to some, but each was a learning experience and presented their own challenge for me.
The rosette is a signature for a classical guitar builder - a focal point of craftsmanship and an article of conversation that can exist beyond the playability and sound of the classical guitar. So it is surely understanding that a luthier, early in her career, would give the responsibility of this task to someone set up solely for that purpose alone. A few years ago I was running out of excuses for using those beautiful handmade Russian rosettes you will find on guitars 2-6. Although beautiful, they are not my handiwork and I had already placed so much labor in creating my own binding and purfling.
I was waiting. Surely the perfect moment would come along when, perhaps in my sleep, or on the road, I would have a true moment of inspiration and it would birth a design that would be unique beyond all argument and the rest would just take care of itself.
The interesting thing - The very moment I set out to tackle this task, I had only a very vague idea where I wanted to go with it. I merely started with a handful of wood that I hoped matched and then proceeded with milling and gluing... eyeballing the alignment of colors and shapes...and having faith that a process would emerge. Luckily things came together, and even though it took me half of a week to complete and inlay the first three rosettes of my own design, like the ones pictured in this post, I was left with a design that is both beautiful and that worked as a starting point for some of the other rosette ideas you see in the gallery.
Sometimes you have to just dive in and start, even when your not sure where to begin or where your going. Learning is a process, the greatest enemy of which - is perfection.
