My essential question is Does using hand tools and traditional woodworking methods to make a bass create a strong artistic connection between me and the instrument? 

Ever since I was a kid I was drawn into making things or tearing things apart to try to understand them. I spent hours building things with legos and wooden blocks. There as something magical that anything I could dream up I could make. As I got older I got much more interested in taking things apart to try to understand the inner workings of them. I started with small toys and electronics and worked my way up to computers and laptops. For me, this deconstruction and reconstruction was the only way I could wrap my head around how each thing worked and how it functioned. Towards the end of my journey tearing down computers I made a computer of my own.  For me, this deconstruction and reconstruction was simply a way for me to learn and understand everything in the world around me in a way that nothing else had before. This understanding of the act of taking something apart or shaping a piece of wood is a very close relationship between the object and the builder. 

Within every block of wood, or piece of metal there is something beautiful, but only as beautiful as the builder’s imagination and skill. An object’s beauty comes from the blending of material and imagination. The raw material and the builder’s creativity is equally important in that process.