Hedging his bets on the afterlife, a local woodworker has created a 30-stringed Celtic harp.
“I’m getting older now so I want to make sure I’ll have something to do when I get to heaven,” joked instrument-maker Robert Valine, ”although I might have to learn how to make pitchforks, too, just in case.”
Valine, now 79 years old, said he learned how to make musical instruments under the tutelage of a craftsman in Portugal in the early ‘70s. Working at a woodshop on the Azores Islands, he stayed late into the night building mandolins and guitars.
Valine, a retired woodworking teacher, said he builds instruments to keep his mind sharp and active.
“The original retirement plan was to sit in an easy chair while my wife brought me beer,” said Valine, “but that didn’t work out.”
Instead of being served beer, Valine often treats his wife, Rita, to custom-made café con leche with their new espresso machine and keeps busy with his instrument-making.
Valine said he spends around 20 hours a week at the hobby, making around three instruments a year, including inlayed guitars and mandolins, in his basement workshop.
The inspiration to make the harp, said Valine, came after meeting a Columbian harpist Martha Bonilla Zabala at Powell River’s Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific’s (SOAP), now PRISMA. After meeting her, Valine said he wanted to see if he could build the instrument.
Using local wood from a mill in Lund, Valine said he assembled the harp with Douglas fir and spruce for the sound chamber and broadleaf maple, with a lamination of tiger maple, for the neck and pillar.
Valine’s harp will be on display starting this week at Rockit Music on Alberni Street.
“People can look at it if they like,” said Valine, “or if they want to make noise with it, they can.”
