The ultimate man toy, or at least one of them…

It’s a bit unfair perhaps, but when I got my hands on Derek Sutherlands old electric guitar, my first thoughts were not all the things I could turn it into, but rather how I could use different parts of the guitar to finish other sculptures I was working on. I ended up using bits of the excellent, dense and very dry wood for the head of sculpture no 11, the legs of no 24, the elephant spider, and for the bridge supporting the single string of Brass band bottle neck, no 46, which also got one of the tuning pegs. The real beneficiary though was no 2, Rejuvenate, the old banjo that got the entire electric innards from the guitar transplanted into it. So, to compensate I of course had to come up with something just as boyishly and rebelliously wild as an Axe.

I never had time to test it, but I hope it shoots straight.

The super light carbon fibre bow is not very strong, but then the Man Toy is not intended for dangerous use. I imagine instead something much more playful, like a Wilhelm Tell style game of shooting cigarettes directly into the mouth of your friends (just remember to wear safety goggles, no really, you should!) The string is one of the original guitar strings, and with the mechanism it’s the same as with all mechanical artworks. You fiddle and fiddle and fiddle, and then when it finally works, you pray that it will continue working for a while. I do have some bad experiences with making sculptures with movable parts, and have promised myself repeatedly not to make any more, but they are so much fun…

I realize that the shape makes this sculpture a bit awkward to hang on the wall, but maybe it could hang from the ceiling?

Object no. 44