If I may, here is a slightly ridiculous comparison: Girl Trouble and their surrounding entities are the Coppolas of Tacoma awesomeness. In addition to the fantastic rock 'n' roll that has come shooting from Girl Trouble's general direction for well over 20 years now, the extremely talented local filmmaker Isaac Olsen and his talented brother, Red Hex lead singer Sam Olsen, are nephews of GT's Bon Von Wheelie and Kahuna. This is a gnarled family tree of talent, and on top of all of this is Isaac and Sam Olsen's father and sometime GT collaborator, Tim Olsen.

But Tim Olsen's biggest claim to fame - to a certain subset of the population, anyway - comes from his status as founding editor of American Lutherie, and one of the foundering members of the Guild of American Luthiers.

Lutherie, for the uninitiated, is the craft of guitar-building, as well as the making of other stringed instruments such as violins and lutes. One who takes part in lutherie is known as a luthier. The Guild of American Luthiers holds a convention at Pacific Lutheran University every three years - and if you think I'm not going to get confused typing all of those "luth-" words, you've got another thing coming.

What began as a kind of a lark in 1972 - at the prompting of a classified ad - has grown into the largest community of luthiers in the world, at an astonishing 3,600 members across 40 countries.

"There was a classifieds ad about three lines long that ran in Guitar Player Magazine and Guitar Review, which was a classic guitar magazine of that day," says Tim Olsen. "It said something like, ‘I think guitar-makers should form a guild, and we ought to share information. Write to me if you think that's a great idea.' And it was the name and address of a guy in the Midwest named Gerald Beall. So, I wrote to him and said it's a great idea, and he wrote back and said, ‘How would you like to publish the newsletter?' I was 18 at the time."

Olsen had already been building guitars since the fourth grade, when he started experimenting with scraps from the Goodwill. Later, he found himself under the tutelage of an eccentric local luthier named Harvey Thomas, who taught Olsen mostly through gruff Socratic means, and would play gigs utilizing a three-necked guitar called The Infernal Music Machine.

Without the community that was once created exclusively by publications like American Lutherie, and now by Internet message boards and the like, the craft of lutherie and the luthiers themselves would seem very strange and insular, indeed. It seems to me that, for a craft that is as old and dignified as lutherie, there sure is a whole lot of wiggle room left open for daring eccentrics and those who respect the form while restlessly pushing the boundaries. Olsen's first successful experiment, he said, "involved bolting the neck of a smashed Gene Autry guitar to a hunk of plywood." It's all about making a sound - about making music - out of nothing at all.

The following of American Lutherie and the Guild of American Luthiers rapidly grew. What started as a guild of 40 members in 1972 - those who responded favorably to the classified ad - ballooned to somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 or 800 by 1977.

"It grew pretty fast," says Olsen. "We were very inexpensive and it turns out there were a lot of people out there who were interested in guitar-making and looking around for sources of information. We never did any advertising, or anything. It was all word-of-mouth back in those days."

Olsen is quick to warn me that the convention - now celebrating its 20th year - is exclusively for members of the Guild on all five days, except for Saturday, July 23, from 1 to 5 p.m. At that time, the convention and all of its various exhibits and booths will be open to perusal by the public.

"(The convention) is just for instrument-makers," says Olsen. "It's not a guitar show. It's not about collectors, players or manufacturers. It's about individual makers of all kinds of stringed instruments."

What one can expect to find when visiting the convention is an incredible amount of craftsmanship and passion. The art of making instruments is plain cool, and it will be a delight to have a brief peak inside the world of such dedicated, enthusiastic and, yes, sometimes insular and weird people. It's a craft that needs to continue on, even as computers more and more are taking the place of artisans. But perhaps one, just one little boy will see a Guild member's guitar and be inspired to bolt some wood together in the hopes of producing a sound.

Guild of American Luthiers Convention Public Open House

Saturday, July 23, 1-5 p.m., no cover
Pacific Lutheran University
University Center, Bldg 34
12180 Park Ave. S., Tacoma
luth.org/convention/2011