Bellingham mandolin maker crafts beautiful music

ON THE ONE hand, says Bellingham craftsman Stan Miller, the gorgeous mandolins he makes are essentially "a box with a stick at one end."

Of course, that's like saying the Sistine Chapel is an auditorium with a colored ceiling. Miller's mandolins are a combination of grace, musical tone and muscle: wood-shaved cardboard-thin but engineered so robustly the instruments can withstand 180 pounds of pressure and pling like an angel.