Modeled after the "Betts" violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1704, the "Venus" violin boasts a beautiful top, made of Sitka spruce from northwestern Canada.  Her two piece highly flamed maple back, neck and ribs, are from Bosnia, and the whole corpus is gently antiqued and hand rubbed with oil varnish. 

           Thurmond Knight completed the "Venus" at 6 p.m., December 1, 2008, and then went outdoors to get more wood for the shop stove.  In the cold dusky night, he saw a brilliant cluster of heavenly bodies lying in the southwestern sky, well above the horizon, about two hours from setting in the west.  The thin sickle of the moon in early first quarter was sparkling just to the left of Venus and Jupiter, the three of them forming a perfect right triangle.  Researching the celestial spectacle, Thurmond learned the rare close conjunction of the moon and two planets won't occur again for many decades.