What do you do with school guitars when they’re no longer able to make music?

At the Calaveras County Arts Council, they’ve been turned into artwork in our most recent show “Guitars Un-Strung.”

Six artists have reimagined eight worn out guitars as visual sculptures. All the artists have donated their artwork so that the guitars can be auctioned to raise funds to support music education programs in Calaveras County public schools. In harmony with our commitment to arts in education, the Calaveras County Arts Council (CCAC) will collaborate on this fundraising project with the non-profit Calaveras Youth Organization (CYO), a group that supports and promotes youth music education in Calaveras County.

CCAC president Fara Roberts conceived of this project as a way to “create awareness that the arts are in jeopardy in the education sector. Funds keep being re-evaluated. Typically it’s arts and music that are on the chopping block.”
 
Roberts once enjoyed recreating a guitar for a personal art project. When she learned that worn-out student guitars from Calaveras High School were going to be retired from use and discarded, she thought of that experience. “I got the idea to give the guitars to artists and let the guitar inspire them and create a piece of art that reflects what that old guitar means to them.”

None of these guitars are playable—they’re not structurally sound enough to restring— but they make a different kind of music, one you experience with your eyes and hear with your heart. You’re invited to the gallery on Main Street in San Andreas Monday through Thursday, noon to 4 p.m. to visit them. You can also see select guitars at Music in the Parks concerts this summer. The guitars will be auctioned at a special reception this fall that is currently in the planning stages.

To bid on any of these guitars, contact Kathy Mazzaferro at 209/754-1774 or goldrusharts18@gmail.com

The Guitars

Frogs leap across an old guitar on a string in Kevin Brady’s appropriately named Hop-a-Long, while his piece titled Craft Art Fair commemorates the North Beach Fair of 1986 with delicate etchings of artists who performed at the event.

Lois Conklin’s piece, called “Tangled Color,” sings with lace-like patterns over blocks of color.

Cyndie Klorer took pattern in a different direction, painting gold filigree on a red background to make a guitar that practically does its own Flamenco dance.

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” by Ann and Elizabeth Seeley, brings together three ideas on a pink and purple background, with the song “Love can build a bridge” apposed to the title of Olivia Rodrigo’s punk-influenced teen anthem “God, It’s Brutal Out Here,” and the eponymous girls’ anthem by Cyndi Lauper.

The rock and roll theme continues with “Winter,” by J.M. Heath. A flurry of white and a strip of runes cover the front of a black guitar. A snarling white-haired wraith peers from the sound hole, inviting you (or daring you) to peer inside.

In opposition to Winter, Heath created a second, more peaceful guitar, called “Nature’s Instrument” that is covered in mosses and bark, making the guitar look like a deep forest floor.

Sometimes guitars can take on lives of their own, associated with an artist but seeming to exist in their own right. Gordon Branch created a replica of Willie Nelson’s legendary “Trigger” guitar, a testament to an instrument that has it’s own mystique. Branch caught the look of the old guitar, right down to the hole above the bridge.

Perhaps the most fantastical guitar in the show is “Fantastical Tree Soirée” by Victoria Fout. Fout, who works in heavily textured acrylic paints, wrapped a guitar in flowers, leaves and vines. A fairy perches in the sound hole, as if enjoying tunes only she can hear.