When I first met him at Sizizi's for coffee, I really was not entirely sure what to expect. Abel is bright-eyed, quick to smile, genuine and a bit soft spoken. When I explained what I had in mind he lit up like a Christmas tree. We spent a number of hours going over concepts, ideas, cost and possible outcomes.
I knew almost instantly that he was the perfect guy for the job. He was artistic, a little off the beaten path and stellar with carpentry. He also happens to be a aerial trapeze artist, how rad is that? You can find him at Zyl Vardos.
The next time we met he introduced me to the first vardo he had constructed, The Azavela. Abel had a certain glow of excitement and pride about him as he explained the structure.
It is gorgeous, well lit, spacious, cozy and I wanted to move into it immediately. My friend Odera, who was with me concured as we fell in love with his vardo instantly. Abel and I talked more over the next couple weeks. I explained that my plan was to travel extensively across the United States, towing my vardo behind me. He made sure to design a structure that was built to withstand that kind of abuse. Eventually, the time came that we sat down with a contract, cost and the final design concept. It was a hardier version of his original Azavela design, with some tweaks.
Keep in mind that Abel is a rather artistically minded craftsman, something I appreciate and admire greatly about him. The cost of the original design was a few grand more than I knew I could afford. So, he worked around this by coming up with an entirely different design. He presented this to me and I gawked at it with glee. The drawbacks were that it was two feet shorter and a few feet taller than the original design. I knew this design was "it" though, I was ecstatic. He joked that it will look a bit like a church. He calls this design the Fortune Cookie.
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