Adorning electric guitars with artwork is something many fine artists have done. Strangely, however, the same cannot be said about acoustic guitars. In that sense, Louis Yanez is a pioneer.
A self-taught amateur artist who lives in Queens, New York, Yanez makes his living as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. Five years ago, at the request of his
guitarist/friend Godfrey Townsend, he painted five Gibson acoustics for use in the touring Beatles tribute show, “A Walk Down Abby Road.”
Today, an example of his handiwork is on display in the home of Ringo Starr, while two of his other painted guitars fetched $11,000 in a charity auction.
“I’ve been playing guitar since I was 12, and I've always had this artistic side, where I've been able to draw well,” says the 51-year-old Yanez. “When I met Godfrey, he had some acoustic guitars he needed painted, and he asked me if I would be interested. I thought, ‘Wow. That would be a cool way to combine my two interests.’”
With help from his son, who is fluent with Photoshop software, Yanez created several designs he felt would work well on acoustics. After painting the guitars for Townsend, he contacted other guitarist-friends, asking if they had any instruments — often just cheap acoustics — that he could use to hone his art skills.
Over time he developed a portfolio of snapshots of his work, which is often based on classic album covers and other familiar images from the ’60s.
“When you look at my work, you sort of feel like it belongs there, on the guitar,” says Yanez. “That's a product of the thought that goes into the work before the painting begins. It's in the designing and the composition. How do I place this image? Do I add something to it? The design part of the process is what's most fun — figuring out what will work. The second step is actually doing the artwork. I can reproduce a photograph or a painting pretty
closely, so that's a useful ability to have. If someone sees a familiar image, and it doesn't look quite like the original — say, the proportions are off — that's noticeable. So I really try and nail it every time.”
An obvious consideration is whether or not the application of paint changes the tone of the guitar. Yanez says any such change — if it occurs at all — is negligible.
“People tend to assume that a guitar's sound has to change when an artist paints it,” Yanez says. “That’s because artists who paint them tend to slap on lots of gesso, as a primer, and then they use heavy coats of paint. I'
m conscious of the desire to maintain the sound, so I use the materials very lightly. There's still sustain and so forth.”
Yanez has been contacted by several prominent musicians — among them
Kip Winger and
Al Kooper — who’ve been impressed with his work.
As regards the guitar that belongs to Starr, that particular instrument was commissioned by an art-dealer friend of the former Beatle, who presented the instrument to Starr as a birthday gift.
“He tells me Ringo loves it,” Yanez says, adding, with a laugh, that the art dealer forgot to take a photograph of Starr with the guitar. “He keeps telling me, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it.’”
None of Yanez’s work has been done for profit, but when he retires from his civil service position, he would like to affiliate himself with a major guitar manufacturer. Meanwhile, he’s proud that — by painting acoustics — he’s following a path few have taken.
“It's like I opened up a door that no one had opened before,” he says. “There's no tradition behind it. It's an open frontier that no one's explored in the way I've been doing.”
See more of Louis Yanez's acoustic guitar art here!