Judy Threet
Threet Guitars
Calgary, AB
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| Above: Lion: mahogany mane; maple face;
ebony and gold mother-of-pearl eye. Photo by John Dean. |
Judy Threet has been drawing since about the
age of five, and her interest in music began at
the same time. She learned her first ukulele
chords at her grandmother’s knee. Guitar
entered the picture about five years later.
She studied printmaking as an undergraduate
and went to Stanford for graduate studies
in philosophy. Once she returned to Calgary
to teach, she started playing guitar in a local
swing band. That’s where she met Michael
Heiden, the band’s violinist and a gifted luthier,
who decided that she needed an archtop
to really play swing. The two made a deal, she
recalls: “I’d allow him to build me an archtop
[laughs] so long as he allowed me to drop by
on occasion and photograph the process. In
short, I think I dropped by once too often.”
Threet’s interest was piqued when she saw
Heiden working on some of inlays. “At
some point he offered to show me some
the basics,” she says. “That was all it took.”
Having spent several years teaching philosophy
at the University of Calgary, Threet was
ready to have something tangible to show
for a day’s work: “For the last year and a half
that he was in Calgary, even though I was still
teaching part-time, I did Michael’s inlays. By
the time he left, he’d not only taught me the
basics of inlay, he’d overseen the building of
my first guitar and given me a new career.”
Beyond the mechanics of inlay, Heiden
encouraged Threet to play with the chatoyance
of different materials. “But lots of materials
jump in the light,” Threet explains. “Even
most woods do. From the start, chatoyance
intrigued me, and the more I inlay, the more I
find myself focusing on the chatoyant properties
of the materials I use. For instance, I often
spend hours searching for the right piece—a
piece that holds its own within a design,
speaks for itself, one that requires no extra
engraving. And, if I can, I’ll require more—that
every piece not only has to speak for itself but
has to get along with its neighbors. It’s my
attempt at social engineering, a perfect neighborhood
of perfect individuals!”
The search for the right piece for the inlay has
occasionally morphed into a different search:
a search for the right inlay for the piece.
“Perhaps the best example of this is Owl. I
had a piece of bocote that was begging to be
made into this inlay. So that’s what it became!
With only a little help from me, it provided a
suitable house for a little owl.”
A piece of curly koa suggested waves on a
pond. “I tried to choose a lot of right pieces
for the inlayed geese, but I also tried
to choose the right inlay for this particular
piece of wood.”
None of Threet’s inlays involve any engraving
or extra colorant. All textures and colors in
the inlaid materials are, according to Threet,
“as God made ‘em.” Given the natural variations
in both wood and pearl, Threet’s inlays
are strictly one-of-a-kind. “I couldn’t repeat an
inlay even if I wanted to,” she remarks.
Threet has so far resisted expanding her
palette: “Basically, I just use pearl and wood.
I’ve tried other stuff—some metals and Recon
stone (imitation semi-precious stone)—but
those don’t give me my chatoyance fix! I do
use a lot of different mother-of-pearls, my
favorite being black, and I use a lot of different
woods, many of whose names I don’t even
know because I pick them up in cut-off bins
at the local wood store. The biggest problem
with wood is that you have to leave it out
on the bench for a while to see how much
it changes with exposure to air and light.
Some gorgeous woods get ruled out quickly
because you can’t rely on them to retain their
color. But wood does have advantages. It’s
usually pretty cheap—and sometimes its use
actually simplifies the inlay process.”
As for future projects, Threet will keep finding
her inspiration in beautiful wood grains
and chatoyant pearl. She adds, “I have an
adorable panda on the drawing board that I
need to talk someone into...”
Geese: koa background; darker koa shadows; ebony, white and black mother-of-pearl geese; gold mother-of-pearl goslings. Photos by John Dean.
Aspen: ebony background; gold mother-of-pearl leaves; gold, white and black mother-of-pearl trunk.
Owl: bocote background; maple, koa and ebony owl with black mother-of-pearl beak; gold and white mother-of-pearl eyes. Photos by John Dean.
Gryphon: koa background; mahogany haunches; rosewood foreground feathers and ebony background feathers; gold mother-of-pearl beak and feet; white and black mother-of-pearl.