Creating cuatros from island wood
She's tuned into tradition
Roy Lawaetz
Rachel Woodruff is good with strings, whether it’s hair, or fashioning a guitar. This hair stylist has her beauty shop at Gallows Bay St. Croix, just outside Christiansted.
When she is not styling hair she creates exceptional acoustic cuartos. She builds these custom made guitars into works of art in her workshop, just a few feet away, from the chairs where her customers sit.
A gifted musician, Woodruff has produced four CD’s of her island styled music. But it’s the workshop attitude of a luthier, one who makes stringed instruments, that puts her into a class her own.
Hand selected pieces of wood are transformed into wonderfully tuned instruments. Woodruff glues and sands some that are not much heavier than a feather. Then she joins each component to construct a masterpiece, which will be fine tuned to play in concert halls and bands. Intricate inlays with mother of pearl and rich woods are just some of the trademarks of the custom made Woodruff guitar. Most people would never realize how many pieces of wood go into construction.
Woodruff saves every piece of scrap wood to create unusual surprises in design. What some might just throw away she turns into magical fantasy. Woodrff purchased her first cuatro from e-bay. Then she disassembled its internal structure to see what it looked like from the inside. “I literally tore it apart,” she says.
She has also learned more about the cuatro’s dynamics by teaching. She already has an 18 year old apprentice named Nate Kelly.
The cuatro originates from Spain and the Spaniards introduced it to the Caribbeanduring the Conquest. But it was the Puerto Ricans who developed it into a ten-stringed instrument,“ says Woodruff.
She now hopes Puerto Ricans who relate to the ten-stringed cuatro will take a serious interest in discovering what she has developed in St. Croix. Just as the Spaniards sailed to the New World with their cuatros, Woodruff hopes her cuatros will cross the waters and be enjoyed by her island neighbors in Puerto Rico. “I would love to have their musicians play on them,”she says.
Roy Lawaetz is an internationally known artist who lives in St. Croix
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