Fiddling around or Old men do lighting

Working on this lamp when the chair project hit my desk last week.  Finally finished the idea Saturday morning in time for Sunday Market display.

In our business, old guys gravitate toward lighting projects.  Heavy furniture clashes with aging knees and time weakened back.  MJ does a lot of jewelry and smalls, but we need another line of inventory to help balance the budget.*  

I have a pile of odd items and boxes of parts and pieces of old lamps and a head full of ideas that are driving me insane . . . sorry earworm . . . mean to say delightfully creative lamp projects swirling around in my mind. 

MJ came home with the fiddle a few weeks ago, maybe you can make it into a lamp. 

Initially reluctant to do this kind of re-purposing out of respect for the original objects no matter the condition, we have recently changed our views.  Sometimes a new life for a discarded item can be fun without going all serious.

Year or two ago I made a tripod lamp with a rare old camera body.  Caught hell from a collector who saw the ad on eBay.  Upset that I drilled holes in the rare antique.  Do you know what that camera is worth?  

Actually yes, about the same as we eventually got for the tripod lamp.

Could catch hell for the fiddle lamp as well.  The base, which we have had for ten years or more, may well have originated in a WWII Japanese internment camp.  Folks collected weathered wood from the surrounding countryside using heavy lacquer to create artistic projects.

place of honor next to the shrine in the yard

Never could verify the provenance.  Had it at Fremont dozens of times over the years, customers were polite, but didn't believe, didn't care about my internment camp story.  Luckily the base piece came off without damage and I put it in the yard.  

Wouldn't be surprised if a luthier were to see my project and take me to task over glueing and screwing a beautiful little violin to a lamp base. Oh well.

All we need now is someone to come along who had just the right place to use the lamp.

*balanced budget and junker business: oxymoron