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An Intersection of Art & Music
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The Great Wave by Hokusai |
Louis Yanez likes to think of his one of a kind creations as the intersection of art and music.
Lou's muse for the piece he created for Luna on a Luna Muse dreadnought, was "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" a woodblock print created by the Japanese artist Hokusai. In the century and a half since its creation in 1832, it has become one of the most iconic images in the world of fine art.
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So what does art have to do with music?
"Music and the visual arts, specifically architecture, have been linked at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. During the Renaissance that affinity was extended to painting", Lou observes. "Painting guitars is how I express that relationship and I like to think of what I do is summed up best by the French painter and writer Antoine Coypel who said 'What should move the heart by passing through the ears should also move it by passing through the eyes.' "
Much of Lou's inspiration has come from album covers, another intersection of art and music. Yanez points out that Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Pictures at an Exhibition" or Don McClean's "Starry Starry Night" are further examples of the creative tendency to combine art and music.
How did Yanez, a civil servant and family man living outside New York begin
come up with the impulse to use guitars as canvases?
It's a long and winding road that got him to where he is today! Lou started out as a musician and began performing and making puppets in a community theater group during the 80's. During this era Lou ran into an old friend who, coincidentally, was a professional puppeteer that worked on several Henson movies. Lou built puppets for his troupe for about 10 years until his friend accepted a job performing at Disneyworld in Orlando.
"By that time my creative compass had shifted but I wanted to do something that would allow me to keep the puppet flame burning. That's when I decided to make a John Lennon puppet. I only perform with it once a year, on Sept. 9, Lennon's birthday.", Lou explains.
"I stand next to the entrance to Strawbery Fields and greet the people who come to celebrate his memory. I use a stick for an armrest which allows me to perform nonstop for the whole day. It's a joy to meet all the folks from all over the world who come there, and the looks on their faces when they see my performance is priceless."
What do puppets have to do with guitars?
"When I built the Lennon puppet, I decided to make miniature replicas of the guitars he actually used. That's when I got interested in the process of how a guitar is actually finished. I found a few books on guitar refinishing and learned about the techniques used on real guitars and applied them to my mini replicas. As I was making these guitars, I was also learning about guitar design and the different features of various guitars. Since I was a guitar player myself, I knew what models would be desirable to make and the famous artists who used them. Some of the most interesting guitars I thought people would like were the ones from the "60's, the psychedelic painted guitars of Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, etc. So I made a few of those and then began to wonder about the possibility of doing some original artwork on these guitars."
What caused the shift from miniature to full scale guitars?
" It wasn't until I ran into Godfrey Townsend, lead guitar player for Alan Parsons'
current lineup, who liked my mini's and asked me if I would be interested in painting some of his acoustic guitars." Townsend was working on "A Walk Down Abby Road", a touring tribute to the Beatles, and propsed that Lou paint 5 guitars for the show.
"When I got home I told my son Jeff about it, and he showed me how to envision my ideas on his Photoshop software. It was an incredible revelation. I started printing out these ideas and when I showed them to Godfrey he was amazed.
The question then was could I actually paint these ideas on a real guitar? At first I wanted to find an artist who had the ability to do these ideas justice, but my kids were the ones who convinced me to try doing them myself. So after I got
some books on color theory and painting techniques I went ahead and executed the artwork on his guitars."
Of the first five guitars, three of them were inspired by the Beatles, one by Pink Floyd, and the last was the show's logo. Lou has pictures of Todd Rundgren, Denny Laine and Alan Parsons playing the guitars on stage.
So what does the future hold?
"The rest, as they say, is history. My creative compass has shifted once again and I have no doubt that this time it will lead me to the creative promised land that all artists hope to find."
For now, Lou still considers his artwork a labor of love, but who knows what lies around the corner? In the meantime, Lou is doing something we would all love to do......following his bliss!
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Site Contents Copyright © 2008 Luna Guitars
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