Artistic mastery and skill take many forms and involve a discipline that can produce practical applications which are original and timeless. Continuing our feature of conversations with religious thinkers in the arts, contributing editor Hazel Joynes and her husband, Malcolm, met and talked with Peter Clay of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, who is now living and working in Switzerland. Peter is a maker and restorer of fine violins, violas, and cellos, all made entirely by hand. He uses tools and techniques that have remained virtually unaltered since the golden age of Cremonese violinmaking (seventeenth to eighteenth centuries). This uncompromising dedication to artistry and perfection characterizes his approach to creating fine instruments.
Hazel Joynes: I believe one of your major projects, Peter, was reconstructing a badly warped Stradivarius violin. Would you like to relate the interesting way you approached that assignment.
Religious thinkers
in the arts
