TWO GROUPS OF SEVEN
Almonte luthier builds masterpiece
For more than a decade, Almonte has been home for Linda Manzer, one of the world’s premier guitar builders. Virtuosos Bruce Cockburn and Pat Metheny play Manzer’s bold and beautiful instruments on stage. Her cheapest model sells for $14,000. Higher end ones command upwards of $50,000. Manzer, 64, learned her craft in the 1970s as one of the six original apprentices of master luthier Jean Larrivée. (She would go on to study in the Long Island workshop of James d’Acquisto, considered one of the greatest guitar makers to have ever lived.) Now master builders in their own right, those six original students, together with Larrivée himself, got together to pay tribute to another Group of Seven artists. The Group of Seven Guitar Project opens May 6 at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, northwest of Toronto. Manzer spent six months building her striking two-necked “harp guitar” in tribute to painter Lawren Harris. The Citizen caught up with Manzer at her Almonte studio.
Q How is that you got into guitar building?
A I went to see Joni Mitchell at Mariposa in the mid ‘60s. I was a teenager and she was playing a dulcimer and I was kind of a young Joni Mitchell clone. I went to the Toronto Folklore Centre to buy a dulcimer and it was $150, which I couldn’t afford. So the guy at the store talked me into buying a kit for half the price. If not for him, I would not be a guitar maker.
I was in art school and at some point I decided I wanted to combine all my disciplines into one thing and I thought guitar making would be cool. I was a bad folksinger. It combined art, music and wood working. I searched around for someone who could teach me — this was long before the Internet — and the name that kept coming up was (Jean) Larrivée. I basically bugged him until he hired me.
Q What is it that drew you to Almonte?
A I’ve kept one foot in Toronto, but I’ve bought a house in Almonte and I’ve fallen in love with the town. I came here because of someone, but I stayed here anyway. It’s like my dream place, Almonte. It’s just so beautiful and the people are so nice. It’s a magical place.
Q It seems that building a guitar means balancing esthetics with acoustics. How do you manage that?
A My checklist is, No. 1, it’s got to sound great. No. 2 is that it’s got to feel right. The instruments are under so much stress, the wood is under the stress of about 200 pounds from the strings, so you have to design the guitar so that it looks good and it feels good and it’s structurally sound.
No. 3 is what it looks like. That’s where you can have fun. In the case of the Lawren Harris guitar, that’s where I went nuts.
Q How did you come up with the idea for the Group of Seven project?
A I was walking through the National Gallery looking at the Group of Seven collection. There’s a wall of their small sketches. I was standing there staring at those and I saw that there was a connection between the Group of Seven, which came out of Toronto in the early 1900s and had this friendship association, and the group of seven guitar builders that came out of Toronto in the 1970s. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we paid an homage to them and each of us built one guitar for each of the Group of Seven?” I wrote the original apprentices of Larrivée and said, “Are you guys up for this?” They all said yes, without hesitation.
Q How did you translate what you see in Harris’s paintings into a musical instrument?
A We were given full access to all the archives (at the McMichael Gallery). I was able to look up close at all the original sketches and go into the vaults and get right up close to his paintings. And I got to read his letters to Emily Carr, which was mindblowing. I felt like I was spending the afternoon with him.
I was walking toward one particular painting — Mt. Lefroy — and I wondered, “What if that was a guitar?” I took the bottom of the mountain where there was a cliff and I thought, “What if that was the sides?” Then I saw the tip of the mountains as the peg heads. That was my starting point.
It ended up sounding really good. It looks weird. I know that. I’m aware of that. I knew it had to be big and bold, so I went out on a limb.
Q What materials did you use?
A The top is bear claw German spruce. The back and sides and neck are European curly maple. Harris studied in Berlin, so I thought it was appropriate to use wood that I bought from a German wood vendor. The colour comes from high quality, fade resistant watercolour pencils. I just sort of started scribbling. All of the colours are drawn on.
Q You make beautiful instruments. Do you play yourself ?
A I used to play a lot, but as I started building professionally I’ve been around musicians who are so amazing that it sort of discouraged me from playing with them. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not really a great guitar player. I do play for myself, but nobody hears me anymore.
The Group of Seven Guitar Project opens May 6 a the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and runs until Oct. 29. A series of concerts will be held over the summer with notable guitarists playing each instrument, including Jesse Cook, Tony McManus and retired astronaut Chris Hadfield. Details can be found on the gallery’s website mcmichael.com bcrawford@postmedia.com Twitter.com/getBAC