I seem to have become Johnny’s ad hoc photographer. This is kind of funny because I worked for Adolph Studly, a New York City photographer of art and architecture, when I was in high school (see page I wrote about my experiences with Studly elsewhere in this blog).  I offered my services when I heard about Johnny’s latest project–turning a discarded guitar into a work of art!

I’ll try to fill in some backstory as best I can. Seems that  a person on a tour of the Martin Guitar factory noticed a pile of guitars that appeared to have been discarded or rejected. They were told that the pile would be put through a wood chipper to make sure they would never be sold since they didn’t meet the rigorous standards of excellence imposed by the manufacturer. Somehow this individual came up with the idea that they be distributed to various artists who would turn the guitar into a work of art to be displayed and later auctioned off with a portion of the proceeds going to charity. Martin liked the idea apparently and “green-lighted” the project. Johnny was one of the artists chosen to receive a guitar. I asked if he would call me the day he was going to ship it out and I took these photos. I’m not too happy with the quality of the photos… I needed an assistant with a reflector… and how about one of those huge scrims overhead? That would have helped.

Make sure to click on the photos for a larger view. There is a bit of  trompe l’oeil in use and some other funny touches and jokes thrown in. These guitars will be on display at the Martin factory later this year.