Welcome

(introductious felicitations)

     Mallion is the name of my hybrid violin design and the coinciding family of bowed strings modeled after it.  It is made from the traditional woods and steel, and it is a unique culmination and balance of beauty, technology, weaponry and, perhaps, sadism.  To procure my place among violin makers everywhere, I offer this brief history about myself.

     My first violin was a family heirloom that I inherited from my great-uncle's father.  It sat in a closet for 83 years before it was given to me, and it was a beautiful time capsule of decades past.  When pulled out of the closet, it had  three rotted and broken cat-gut strings still attached to it.  The bridge had been nearly shaved flat to facilitate easier chord movement and I found a rattlesnake tail sliding around inside of the body of the violin; an old superstition among fiddlers that is supposed to make the instrument sound more beautiful.  From this inheritance, I have a learned a tremendous amount of love and respect for the Stradivarius tradition of the violin family, and from that respect and love that I chose  to build my own design.  The only part of the acoustic violin I have never enjoyed is the fragility of the instrument; I have often felt it is like playing an egg with strings.  I wanted to, and I have, created a kind of violin and violin family that is, when compared to standard acoustic or other electric violins, indestructible.

     The production and invention of the first Mallion was a necessary conglomerate of several of my skills.  My life has been a scattered mess of various educations: I have attended Kansas City Art Institute, I have had apprenticeships with blacksmiths, pewterers, and jewelers, I have had lessons with some old school fiddle players and I have spent a few years at Missouri State University, graduating with a BFA in metal sculpture from Metropolitain State College of Denver.  In order to complete the first violin, I used everything I had ever learned about drafting, design, composition, metalwork, woodwork, music and stamina. It was my first piece of fully functional sculpture (besides furniture) and the first prototype was a year in production.While making the prototype, I worked in a blacksmith shop, my grandfather's woodshed, and a college sculpture lab. During construction I, did and do, cut, forge, hammer, curse, weld, braze, glue, drill, tap, sand, grind, curse again, hammer again, braze again, grind again, stain, powder coat and solder to complete my mission. 

     Mendon, thecontrabass, is my second instrument.  The creation of its prototype was spread out during the course of a year and a half, and the construction process was very labor intensive. The sheer size of the instrument caused a lot of problems initially because of the fact that metal tends to bend under stess of heat and string pressure unless properly reinforced.

     The cello, Midian, involved more technology, including plasma cutting and CAD based prgramming and like the bass, Mendon, stands uprigh by itself to aviod any weight issues. Midian completes the four piece Mallion family of strings promoting a gorgeous new hypostation of visual and physical strength that parallels the power produced by the instruments musically.

     I am now located in Japan, and I create instruments on a commission basis. To see my lastest creation, the "Hung Mallion Scythe" created for Lyris Hung of the band Hung vist the Studio/Gallery page. You can also find links to the production blog in the Studio/Gallery page, in which you can witness the mindbreaking steps I took to create the latest design.