zoom
top left:
The silhouette of
a viola rib garland,
ready to attach.top right:
Every part of the cello
is sanded, scraped, and
polished. It takes Cole
about 250 hours to make
one from start to finish.above:
Every instrument is
unique. Cole personal-
ized the bridge on this
viola with a carved “A.”above left:
A band-sawn scroll and
its offcut. “The negative
and positive are in con-
stant play until the
instrument coalesces
at the end,” Cole says.by piece, gluing each rib to its
block. “It looks like chaos, and
then gradually the chaos comes
into more distinct form,” she
says. “At the end, you see, ‘Oh
yeah, I made a cello.’ ”
A Cole instrument is recog-
nizable by sight and sound.
She decorates the insides, vis-
ible through the f-hole (the
elongated openings on either
side of the strings), with floral
motifs or other designs request-
ed by customers. One asked
for cranes, another a few bars
of Mozart. She prefers a weath-
ered look, where in the varnish
“wasn’t just put on like a fresh
cabinet.” For tone, she uses dif-
ferent woods to find the right
resonance. “I can come up with
a huger variety of tone than
[Stradivarius] could, because
I’ve got all these woods,” she
says, listing Western red cedar,
Sitka spruce, and maple from
the Pacific Northwest, among
other species.
Though Cole’s experimental
tendencies can result in subtle
inconsistencies, she says the
distinctive qualities of her
instruments outweigh those
seeming flaws. “Our lives are
being constricted by the perfec-
tion of machines,” she says. “But
the imperfection of humanity is
what makes us who we are.”
~ robert o’connellannecoleviolinmaker.com
Robert O’Connell is a writer
and a former associate editor
of American Craft.below:
The Patriot cello
(2003), which Cole
made in response
to the 9/11 attacks.
Inside is a poem she
wrote titled “Hymn
USA 9/11.”Behind
The Music
Passing it on:
Cole taught cello
lessons for 30 years.
“That’s how I kept my
first love going,” she
says, “through my
second bread-and-
butter profession.”
Paws and puns:
One of Cole’s cats is
named Viola. It’s pro-
nounced VIE-ola, not
VEE-ola, but the point
gets across.
Changing directions:
For a time, Cole experi-
mented with vertical
violas designed to be
played upright like a
cello. “It was the size
a viola should be if it’s
acoustically designed
to be as perfect as a vio-
lin,” she says, but there
isn’t a sizable repertoire
of music written for the
vertical version of the
instrument.
american craft aug/sept 19 15