The Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA) was formed in the late 1980s by builders, repairers, and craft professionals who recognized the need for a shared forum devoted to the practical exchange of knowledge. From the outset, the organization grew not from abstract theory but from real gatherings—workshops, demonstrations, and conversations among working artisans. Early symposia and newsletters established a culture of openness, professionalism, and peer-to-peer learning, with publication serving as a way to preserve and extend what was learned at the bench and in the room.
Over the decades that followed, ASIA continued its work through regular symposia, publications, and member participation. As tools and formats evolved, so did the ways this material was recorded and preserved. Some knowledge lives as text, some as images or recordings, and some only in memory. This archive reflects that reality: a living record shaped by what could be documented, and sustained by a community that continued to gather and share.
The Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA) grew out of real conversations at real workbenches. In the late 1980s, a group of builders, repairers, shop owners, educators, and toolmakers in the Northeastern North American lutherie community began gathering not to found an institution, but to share what was known — and to learn what wasn’t. What started as workshops and talks became regular symposia where techniques were demonstrated, questions were asked aloud, and hard-won solutions were traded across benches and borders.
From those early gatherings, a journal emerged as both memory and teaching tool: a way to preserve what had been said and done where a photograph or a drawing could reach beyond a single room. Over decades, that journal and the conversations that fueled it continued, shaped by evolving tools and media, and by a community that never lost interest in the work itself.
This site presents a curated portion of that record — not as a complete history, but as what could be documented: articles, symposium transcripts, technical insights, and demonstrations that reflect the craft as it was practiced, shared, and preserved. ASIA is not defined by its gaps, but by the depth of what it chose to record and the generosity of those who recorded it.