From Sculptor to Luthier
Several years ago, sculptor Pascal Giacomini spent a month in a Haitian slum, participating in an art festival called The Ghetto Biennale, where all artists were directed to create their work with local materials. From that experience emerged two unlikely developments:
- The artist produced and directed a documentary film titled Out of Chaos—An Artist’s Journey in Haiti, which featured the profusion of artwork being created by the Haitian artists living and working in this challenging environment. There followed 36 international festival selections as well as ten awards, including Best Director in Amsterdam, and Best Cinematography in Los Angeles.
- A wholesale change in the artist’s creative process also resulted. Pascal became a convert to the use of recycled, repurposed, and found objects to create his art.
Becoming a Luthier
During the making of his documentary, Pascal worked with a music composer, who agreed to do the film’s sound mix in exchange for an original, sculptural instrument. Pascal, who is tone-deaf, can’t play any instruments—but he loves music, and he loves to build things. So off he went on a journey of discovery as he embarked on building his first vintage oil can guitar—and thus becoming a luthier.
He sees the 50s-era oil cans as cast-offs of American Capitalism, recycled into art and music. Many guitars later, the first tinny-sounding, stringed musical instruments he created are now professionally playable. They are semi-hollow electric guitars; the main body is a solid ¼″ piece of African mahogany, swamp ash, or spruce. The cans are lined with tonewood, such as rare, curly, old-growth Douglas fir or redwood, with Indonesian rosewood sound posts. The very tightly joined neck fittings are so sturdy that they barely need screws. The instruments stay in tune—and once plugged into an amp, they sound the way jazz & blues (or rock & roll) guitars should sound.
Each guitar is properly intoned, and integrated with a sculptural infrastructure made of steel and found objects. In other words, a musician playing one of Pascal Giacomini’s guitars is literally playing a work of art! The videos below illustrate his guitars in action.