Sunday, May 27, 2007

GuitarMania Hits Cleveland

For those of you who don't know, Cleveland is the Rock and Roll Capital of the World. Yup, it's true. And one of the benefits of living in the Rock Capital of the World is that you get to participate in some pretty cool public art projects.

A few months ago, my nephew Trevor asked me if I would like to work with him on some designs for GuitarMania , a public art project where artists are invited to create scuplture and art out of these huge oversized guitars. It's been a pretty popular project here in town and it certainly is very prestigious, as each guitar is auctioned off at the end of the summer and also displayed all over town. Many artists from across the country, and even some celebrities, have desigend guitars for the project. I agreed to help Trevor design the guitar and lo and behold, our design, Octopus' Garden, was accepted into the project. Moreover, it got sponsored by Time Warner Cable.

Now, I must confess, my major contribution to the project was my design. Trevor did all the hard work and back-breaking labor of sculpting and painting , lugging this heavy piece to various locations and essentially bringing my artwork to life. He's an incredible artist, a very talented painter and not surpisingly, his guitar is getting a lot of attention. In fact, the sculpture will be displayed rather prominently across from Tower City, a major hub here in town.

Anywho, I was pretty excited about it's big unveiling this weekend. From what I understand, our design is in the upper eschelon of designs for the project. I have to make a trek downtown to see it in person and when I do, photos and video will be forthcoming. But in the meantime, you can see more about our guitar and the other guitars in the project here.

UPDATE: I met the guitar in person and have uploaded the photos to prove it.