It’s no secret creativity takes many forms. I typically write, occasionally draw, and sometimes lose hours of my life to the hellmouth known as Photoshop. Not-long ago, I posted a cool piece of art my friend Rachel drew that was to be used for a new creative outlet (for me), carved into the side of a djembe drum I was going to build at a workshop in New Brunswick, NJ. Unfortunately, a rescheduling of the workshop and resulting conflict was to cause me to miss-out. Miss-out, until the conflicting event moved to the following weekend :).

So I got to build “my” drum (read after the pics for the explanation of the quotes).

The build

An hour’s worth of sanding anything can make a huge difference for the final product.

“Dark Walnut” stain put on thick. Took forever to dry, and required forty minutes of wipe-down, but was worth it.

Freehand drew the earth goddess over the stain with a yellow Sharpie.

Second pass with the Dremel. First pass was with a thin carving head, second pass was to expose more wood.

Clear coat on. Had to be careful not to pull stain over the exposed wood.

The finished drum. Metal rings wrapped in fabric I recovered from an old hand-made shirt of mine.

I know what you’re thinking. Yes, it was a lot of work. All told, I have over twenty hours of sanding, staining, ring-making, carving, rope-pulling in on her. I still have blisters. Painful, exhausting, and hella-fun.

And then I gave it away.

Not my drum

The Friday night the workshop kicked off, the person running it told the story of how my drum was supposed to be donated to a friend. This friend had asked him for a drum she could auction to raise money to buy Native American kids shoes, which she does annually. That story, combined with how I wasn’t originally supposed to make the workshop, told me the drum wasn’t mine, but the experience of building it would be.

I went through the weekend without telling anyone my plan, made new friends, helped and received help as needed, and even participated in the closing drum circle. At the end, I told the drum maker what I was going to do, which he accepted with a bevy of kind words, knowing how much effort I’d put in. BTW, the drum sounds great, too 😀 It’ll make someone happy, and hopefully bring a decent amount for a good cause.

And I’ve already got my next design planned-out. That one I’m going to keep, hehe.

Yay creativity!

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}