Ceramics guitars
CARLOS SANTANA in concert with ceramics guitar and on the backstage with me
My page (CERAMICS GUITARS) on VELENO GUITARS web site:
http://www.veleno.net/
Ceramica_chitarra_ditalia.html
Sometimes in my job I need to leave the usual schemes. To create and to paint plates, vases, amphorae is certainly gratifying, but may become monotonous. For many years I have been playing the guitar and, the wish of getting one with some paintings I adore, has led me in 2003 to start this paticular adventure, that after various study and tests, I managed to create an electric guitar with its body wholly made by ceramics. This it has been possible because I am ceramist, and i know how to build an electric guitar.
That is not pottery cover to be glued to the wood, but i mean a body fully made by clay, (just in the pickups zone, I have inserted a little wood part, but just for the sound). After having been baked one first time to the temperature of about 1000 degrees celsius/centigrad (1832 degrees fahrenheit), it has been covered whit a silicious glaze and generally oxside of pond (used to opacify the glaze) and painted with metallic oxides and, than it has been baked one second time to the temperature of 920 degrees celsius/centigrad (1688 degrees fahrenheit); this is an essential process to fix both the glaze and the colours just mentioned.
It' s my intention to emphasize that this is a handwork, without to use special ceramics, glace fiber or ceramics fiber, that are born in XX century and are not included in my work plane, because my creations are inspired like kind of work and material (clay, glaze and colours) to the reinaissance time, using the same process people used during XVI and XVII century for creating vases, plates, hamphorae, jugs, ecc. Even paintings on the guitars are inspired from plates, vases and others ceramics created in Deruta during the XVI and XVII century. Probably somebody doesn' t know that, since 1200, Deruta has been and it' s still one of the most important italian towns for creation of ceramics. Differently from as one may think, also the ceramics guitar weight is not excessive, in fact it' s about lbs 8,9 (kg 4). It's an object that succeeds in blending together ancient history (ceramics) and modern history (electric guitar). The ceramics guitars that I made, are the first exsisting models in the world, created by this type of process.