"I think of guitar building as art for the mechanically inclined," says Kathy Wingert, whose flattop guitars exhibit delicate artistry as well as methodical (and intuitive) engineering. Her engineering ability comes from her teenage years, when she had to keep her temperamental 58 MG-A and 65 Mustang running. Her inspiration to artisanship comes from frustration with the nine-to-five working world. "I went to one too many condescending job interviews," she recalls. "I walked out, shook off my hands, and said, Ill just go make something up."
What Wingert made up is a resumé of 30-plus instruments, whose sound and visual appeal belie the relatively short career of their builder. Since the early 90s, she has immersed herself in lutherie, beginning by "reading every book in five libraries on guitar building." Her guitars have since found their way into the hands of discriminating players and a handful of dealers specializing in fine acoustic instruments.
"Im a very determined person," says Wingert. "When I decide I really want to do something, theres just no stopping me. Ive also been very fortunate in the help that Ive received." Much of that help came from Jon Petersen who owns the World of Strings music shop in Long Beach, California, not far from her current workshop (Kathy Wingert Guitars, 28364 S. Western Ave. #451, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275; [310] 522-9596). Petersen, whom Wingert describes as "an incredible wealth of knowledge," hired her to repair instruments in 1996.
Wingert recently made the decision to devote herself to building guitars full time, and she plans to triple her production to 18 guitars per year. Although her "forgotten repertoire" as a player is mostly classical, her concentration as a builder is on steel-string flattops, derived from traditional Martin-style bracing patterns and dovetail neck joints. The base price for all her guitars is $3,750, and models include a parlor guitar, a traditional 00, the grand concert E model, the grand auditorium F (similar to a Martin 0000), and a classical model. Options include a variety of body and top woods, inlay, cutaway, slotted peghead, and electronics. Shes also open to custom orders and makes decisions about body size, wood selection, and various design options based on the style of the player ordering the guitar. She does not necessarily subscribe to ancient wisdom, such as equating dreadnoughts with flatpicking. Her model E, for example, a fine fingerstyle instrument, is also designed to hold its own when played with a plectrum.
Wingerts shop setup (visible at www.wingertguitars.com), with its variety of routers, well-organized tools, tables, jigs, templates, and wood, is a model of compact efficiency and methodical organization. Nevertheless, her technique for getting the best sound from every guitar involves trimming braces and thinning tops, using intuition and careful listening. "My approach is to take a pile of wood and make the most out of it," she says. "Sometimes braces are scalloped and sometimes tapered because Im trying to optimize what I hear in that particular set of materials." She deduces the structural and sonic potential of a piece of wood by the feel of its resistance to her tools.
Wingert is one of a few women in an overwhelmingly male profession, but she developed a thick skin in her repair job, where customers were constantly looking over and around her and asking, "Can I talk to the repair guy?" She feels that shes been accepted into the lutherie community and was pleased to discover how open other builders are about how they do what they do. "One of the things that impressed me from the very beginning was the willingness of people to share information," she says. "It took me by surprise. But even if you give away your formula, everyone who approaches it is going to get a different result. Because there are so many variables and they're on such a minute level, you develop your own voice."