Hi-Line Living Preview: Creating art from nothing

A Hi-Line native took a life-long passion for playing the mandolin and skills he picked up along the way to cut and carve intricate instruments of his own.

Stan Wall lives about a dozen miles north of Kremlin and has all his life, as his father did and his grandfather since the ancestor was 13. He began playing mandolin because his father was a guitarist and lost his accompaniment. He picked up the Italian instrument to play with his father and has never stopped playing.

He has made half a dozen mandolins since he began in the early 2000s. Each mandolin takes 400 to 200 hours of work, roughly. Each curve, dip and embellishment is carved by his hand from a wooden board.

See Friday's issue of the Havre Daily News to read and see more about Wall's story in this week's Hi-Line Living.