Music to My Eyes:
Musical Instruments as Art
November 8, 2007 to January 13, 2008
Tohono Chul Park Exhibit Hall
Peggy Hazard, Assistant Exhibit Curator
I suppose that on very basic level, a flute is simply a carved piece of wood or hollowed cane, a drum is just a ring of wood with animal skin stretched over it, and a guitar is no more than an impressive accomplishment of physics. That is, until one of them is picked up by a human being and played. When a guitar’s strings are plucked, air is blown into a flute, or a drum skin is tapped, a musical instrument becomes a means for a musician to express delight, love, sadness, or tell a story. Any well-made musical instrument will produce particular sounds. The instruments in our exhibit, however, are meant to be more than functional, musically expressive objects. They are works of visual art; sculptures, in fact, that appeal to the eye as well as the ear.
Music to My Eyes initially developed from a conversation I had about two years ago with a group of Tucson artists at one of the Park’s art exhibit openings. They mentioned that besides painting, creating prints and doing other types of artwork, they loved to make handcrafted musical instruments such as guitars, ukuleles, and violins. I jotted down their names on a cocktail napkin and kept it in my exhibit idea file. In the meantime, I discovered other Arizona artists and musicians who make musical instruments, including fine luthiers, who make stringed instruments. Eventually, Music to My Eyes was scheduled and I began inviting artists and musical instrument makers to participate in the exhibit. Sometimes this was a hard sell since most musicians like to use their instruments and those who are professional guitar and violin makers often have long waiting lists for their work.
William Eaton, who is admired for his exquisite music-making as well as his elegant one-of-a-kind, sculptural harp guitars, graciously lent us his iconic Koto Harp Guitar. Norman Haight of Haight Guitars in Scottsdale, provided a show-stopping masterpiece guitar in a custom-designed display case, while George Leach of Phoenix Guitars and Tucson painter Doug Shelton shared beautifully designed and carefully crafted guitars. In a fun vein, William Wiggins took a child’s souvenir guitar from Mexico and recreated it as an elegant Day of the Dead themed ukulele!
Another serendipitous event occurred last spring when I was visiting a Tucson gallery and saw a guitar that Barbara Gurwitz had painted with a desert scene; it was to be auctioned in the Art of Music, a fundraiser for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Cookie Pashkow, who worked on their fundraiser, offered to contact people who had purchased several artistically decorated pieces from the Art of Music to see if we could borrow them for our exhibit. We are delighted to show Ned Egen’s Ant Cello; guitars painted by Brenda Semanick and Barbara Gurwitz; violins embellished and recreated by Allan Mardon, Michael Ives and Moira Geoffrion; and a blown glass drum by William Justiniano.
Suddenly I became aware of musical instruments everywhere I went; and I found art works in several media featuring musical instrument as their subject by Arizona artists. This encompassed a number of works made from reclaimed materials, including Jude Clarke’s violins recycled into elegant purses, gourd and bobby pin kalimbas by Mark Holdaway, Royce Davenport’s Tin Horn sculpture, Lily Rose Krugly’s guitar with a U.S. flag design pieced from tiles, and Dave Newman’s Heavy Metal guitar sculpture. Native American instrument makers have used a number of natural materials in their work and we are showing here Chesley Wilson’s agave stalk Apache violin and an array of spectacular pieces made by Yaqui artist and musician Alex Maldonado: decorated gourd rattles, carved wood flutes, and a full drum set made with buffalo hide he prepared himself! Other Native American style flutes in our exhibit were made by Santee Sioux, Lee LaCroix, Diné (Navajo) flute makers Daryl Bedonie and Paul Thompson, and Nev Autry, who is not Native American but creates beautiful Plains-style flutes.
Complementing the three-dimensional works on display are a number of paintings and prints dealing with the forms of musical instruments. Rhod Lauffer created his Jazz Series that features paintings and monotypes exploring abstract instrument shapes. Denise Currier’s delicate watercolors immortalize symphonic instruments and Paul Mirocha’s “album cover art” for his forthcoming CD, Mandophilia, expresses visually his love of mandolin music. Paul Jaffe’s Double Bass Motion is an exciting computer-designed image that perfectly depicts the reverberations of a plucked bass.
What would an exhibit of musical instruments be without hearing them played? We are offering several opportunities for visitors to enjoy instruments being played by their makers. Alex Maldonado will perform on the flute and Chesley Wilson will play Apache instruments at the exhibit’s opening reception on November 8. In addition, artist/musicians will play at three Sunday Afternoon Music Demonstrations (see schedule below),William Eaton will perform a special concert on November 11, and Jay Cravath will present a lecture on musical instruments as historical objects on December 9.
Music to My Eyes could not have happened without the assistance of many people, including the artists themselves and those who lent precious works from their personal collections: Petra Boehm and George Hanson, Bob and Yvonne Buhler, Don and Joselyn Clark, Eleanor Dart, John Davis, Deb Driskill, Barbara Gurwitz and William Hall, Brad Holland, Wanda Kay and Dan Duncan, R.Carlos Nakai and Pam-Hyde Nakai, and Bette and Gerald Zatuchni.
I also want to thank the Arizona Historical Society, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, the Arizona Humanities Council, Trader Joe’s, Mark Bahti, Su Egen, Susan and Dan Latin, and the Tucson Symphony for their support.
(520) 742-6455