American Craft – August 01, 2019

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when she was a seventh-

grader in Albuquerque, New

Mexico, Anne Cole first played

a cello, which she borrowed

from the school. “This one

was all carved up and scratched

up,” she says, “just completely

vandalized.” Disheartened

that anyone would treat an

instrument this way, Cole

brought it home over winter

vacation, took it apart, and

revarnished it.

“From then on, I told my

parents that I was going to be

a violin maker,” Cole remem-

bers. “But I had no idea how.”

The “how” involved years

of informal study: a how-to

book from the local library, a

violin-making kit given to her

for Christmas, and her piano

teacher’s next-door neighbor,

who let Cole watch as he made

instruments. She graduated

from the Uni versity of New

Mexico as a music major

“because that was the closest

thing I could get to violin

making,” earned a master’s

degree in cello performance

at UNM, and in 1967 began

teaching, moving from city

to city as opportunities became

available for her and her hus-

band, David, also a music teach-

er. In a kitchen in Los Alamos,

New Mexico, Cole finished her

first in strument, modeled after

Product Placement

Anne Cole

zoom

12 american craft aug/sept 19