It Rocks! Clifford Wheeler On The Luthier's Art

Whether you prefer soft strumming or hard-core rock, Clifford Wheeler's latest work at Multiple Exposures Gallery (MEG) is captivating. His images of guitars from one of the largest private collections in the world reveal the sinuous lines and graphic details of instruments that brought us some of our favorite music over the decades. 

Below, Clifford shares some thoughts on the inspiration for his show -- Axes Bold As Love -- The Luthier's Art. Please join us for an opening reception on Sunday, January 13th at 2pm at MEG. The show runs through February 10th.

There's just some aspect of the human mind that lends itself to the concept of “collecting." I suspect the first objects to be collected might have been either pebbles or shells. Since these early days of collecting, our tastes have become more sophisticated, more refined. We can now take credit, as a species, for collecting “Beanie Babies," political memorabilia, autographs, match books, Bobble Heads, paperweights, and, of course, rare American Guitars.  I happen to know one of these guitar collectors, and as it turns out, his is one of the most respected  collections of  “Vintage American Guitars” in the whole of the entire world. And did I mention, they are totally cool.                                                           

You don't even have to be a musician to appreciate how completely beautiful they are. And then...there's the sound. These days, any time a tune plays itself in your head, there's a good chance that one of these instruments most likely helped create it.            

Once in a conversation with Gilvis, whose guitars these are, he made the statement that “Ed Sullivan  killed guitar manufacturing in America”! I asked, “You mean the TV guy Ed Sullivan? What's up with that?"  He said, “From the moment he  introduced the Beatles on American television, the demand for electric guitars increased exponentially.” The subsequent mass-production of these instruments led to their rapid  decline. The expression "pre-CBS" refers to guitars made before CBS acquired Fender Guitars, but maybe the “Golden Era” might be better defined simply as pre-Beatles.                                                                                                             

Remix Challenge

Last month, Studio 360www.studio360.org issued a challenge: married photographers Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor provided ten images for artists to remix into an original composition.  They received more than 600 entries, ranging from the poetic to the eerie to the just plain far-out. Uelsmann and Taylor selected the winners and gave MEG member Louise Noakes an honorable mention for this image. Louise shares some thoughts on the challenge below:

1. What was required for the challenge?  At the end of an interview of Maggie and Jerry by Kurt Anderson on WNYC Studio 360 they gave the listeners a challenge: use some or all of 10 photographs they posted of objects such as a crow, a butterfly, old photographs of people and several landscapes and turn them into an original work. Maggie encouraged participants to include their own images too.
2. Did you start with a vision and manipulate the elements to achieve it or did you start by playing with the elements and go where they took you? I rarely start with a preconceived idea and when I do, it usually doesn't work.  In this case, I began with one of my own landscapes and then added some of their images in a playful manner.  I actually entered a few images into the challenge and some were definitely more my work then theirs. The image that garnered the honorable mention was inspired by Maggie Taylor and that may be why it received the honorable mention -- Kurt Anderson said a lot of the work chosen by Maggie and Jerry looked like theirs.

3. You've said you admire Jerry and Maggie. Can you give a couple of specifics about their work that you find interesting? Starting back in the early 70's, I was fascinated by Jerry Uelsmann. I went to a school that was producing more street photographers; Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand were some of our idols. I did that, but had this other side to me that really liked to try new things and manipulate my images. I love the way their images come from where ever their imaginations will take them. I hate being confined to any photographic rules. Maggie goes into the digital realm of photography and I like the way she make these wonderful montages, scanning a live fish or using found object from flea markets. Having made the transition from film to digital, the possibilities are endless. I am excited to see where it will go.