Manic about those Fender Stratocasters

I stumbled upon the opening ceremony for GuitarMania the Friday before Memorial Day. Most of the 76 guitars were displayed in front of the Rock Hall, some with their artists next to them posing for pictures. At the microphone, the sponsors and organizers spoke about how the money raised by sponsorships and auctioning pays for education and how because rock is a world phenomenon, the Rock Hall Induction Ceremony should move around.

Downtown Chicago was decorated by cows and then by couches. Painted unicorns turned up on the roadways from Corolla to Buxton in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Somewhere in that menagerie, Cleveland very appropriately spiffed up Fender Stratocaster guitars. As the Rock-n-Roll capital of the world, Cleveland should have guitars and the Rock Hall’s induction ceremony.

This is the 3rd year for GuitarMania, a Greater Cleveland Art Project. The first took place in 2002, followed by another one in 2004. Three years later, the United Way of Greater Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Foundation have teamed up again to bring together the artists, Fender, SuperSponsors Eaton Corporation and KeyBank, and sponsors ranging from large corporations to cultural groups to private foundations. Volunteers are the glue that hold it all together, and the public benefits from the pleasure given by the Art. The project is an undertaking in unity and benevolence that proves people can come together for a good cause.

This year’s Greater Cleveland Art Project runs from May through October. Check out their website at here for information on the history of the event, how the artists are chosen, where the guitars have been displayed, and who the sponsors are.

The artists submit sketched designs that are displayed in a juried show in January. Sponsors choose the designs they would like on the guitars they sponsor. After the guitars are delivered to the artists’ work spaces in February, the artist has a couple of months to finish the art and have the guitar delivered to a warehouse where it waited to be displayed on Memorial Day weekend.

Now, the guitars range the streets of downtown Cleveland from the Warehouse District to the Theater District. Three are displayed at Cleveland Hopkins. Many of the guitars are downright beautiful, like “Steel Guitar” featuring a ship, sponsored by Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc., and designed by Jerry Schmidt & Meat-Jeffery Paul Gadbois and The Lubrizol Corp.’s “A World of Applications” by Simon Bramfield, Jeff Rhoades and Bill Simmonds.

What an excuse for walking around the city! After discovering the guitars at lunchtime that Friday, I brought my husband and 15-year-old daughter down to the Rock Hall that evening as the sun hung low over Lake Erie. We slowly studied each guitar and discussed its merits, just as we would at the Art Museum, but we were outdoors in the city and the art was on 9-foot-high guitars. We ranged around Voinovich Park, then walked the Inner Harbor over to the Stadium and back, passing another outdoor piece—the newer sculpture crowning the firefighter’s memorial—the scary flames seem about to overpower the firefighters below who bravely face a force greater than them.

One can encounter nine guitars in walking a loop around the Tower City complex, including a design by the young artist I met who said he and his uncle just wanted to create something with appendages; they came up with an octopus sculpted and painted on a guitar called “Octopus’ Garden” (by artists Trevor Connelly and Len Peralta and sponsored by Time Warner Cable). American Greetings Creative Licensing Studio’s “Rock and Learn,” sponsored by American Greetings and Sesame Workshop, is Sesame Street themed.

Some 26 guitars can be discovered on a walk through the Civic Center District northeast of Public Square and along the Mall and lakefront over to E. 9th and then heading back west along Superior to Public Square. On the north side of Lakeside are Melyssa Rohrs’ “Zoo Rock” sponsored by Aleris International Inc., “The Glass Parrot” by Judy Kean and sponsored by The William & Pamela Summers Family, “Plug In” by Leslie Schroeder and Brett Dziatkowicz and sponsored by Virginia Marti College of Art & Design, and “Cleveland Schools Rock” by Jane Onk and Louis Pasteur Elementary-School artists sponsored by Forest City Enterprises, Inc. One of my personal favorites is the Anthony J. Celebrezze Fireboat by Craig Petersen and sponsored by Jones Day.

On the south side of Lakeside is “King James” by Billy Nainiger and sponsored by Family Heritage Life Insurance. Artists at Regina High School created “Sweet Cleveland,” displayed on Mall A and sponsored by the United Way. Robert Lockwood Jr. is honored by a guitar called “Blues Man” by Neal Hamilton and sponsored by Barnes Distribution, which has been placed on E. 9th by the Galleria. The beautifully-designed-in-red guitar sponsored by The Hungarian Community and called Singing the Legacy of Freedom, by artist Krisztina Lazar. is also along E. 9th Street.

To see the Untitled piece by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, one must walk west of Public Square on Superior to the corner with W. 6th Street; there are four guitars along W. 6th. Cleveland Cats Rock, created by Milan Kecman, is all the way out by Artefino. The rest of the guitars dot the Gateway and Theater Districts.

The GuitarMania Gala Auction takes place on Saturday, October 20, 2007, at 8PM outside the Rock Hall at One Key Plaza. Proceeds benefit the agencies supported by the United Way and educational programs put on by the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame. Yoko Ono’s guitar from 2002, titled “Imagine Peace,” sold for $105,000 in 2002. Someone will pay a bit to snatch up “King James,” which features a portrait of LeBron James, to place in their favorite place to watch the Cavs play basketball.

Guitars are Cleveland’s own, so I found it disconcerting to discover other cities have art projects with guitars as the centerpiece. It’s not unlike my feelings about the Induction Ceremony because no one else is the Rock-N-Roll capital of the world. No one else has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I suppose we should let it go and enjoy walking around the city looking for guitars. What a combination that is—a walk in the city while taking in Art!

From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia J. Taller ctallerwritesATwowway.com

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