Waukesha's Journey To Be a Gibson GuitarTown Moves Forward
While the project needs to go before government boards for approval, 10 10-feet-tall fiberglass Les Paul model guitars arrive in city.
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Ten 10-feet-tall fiberglass Les Paul model guitars arrived in Waukesha Tuesday morning as the city is planned to be the next Gibson GuitarTown.
The guitar were delivered to the Spring Artisan Village, 521 Wisconsin Ave. Local artists will soon be selected to decorate the guitars that will be placed throughout the city.
“What can I say? It is amazing,” said Lynn Gaffey, owner of Almont Gallery and a member of the steering committee that is planning the project.
The artist selection begins Tuesday, Gaffey said, and 25 artists have submitted applications to work on the guitars.
In addition to the 10-feet-tall guitars, 15 smaller guitars will be placed throughout the city. Gibson is donating three of the large guitars and all of the 15 guitars, according to Norm Bruce, owner of Martha Merrell Books and media spokesman for the project. Original plans called for 10 smaller guitars.
The remaining seven larger guitars are being funded by Mayor Jeff Scrima’s New Day in Waukesha fund, a fund he opened to donate his pay after he promised during his election to work for half pay.
“Originally it was 10 (small guitars), but after they knew we had committed to doing the seven more and saw a copy of the check, they immediately said ‘You wanted five more, we will chip those in,’” Bruce said.
Looking at the tall guitars, the project is becoming a reality in Waukesha – the birth and final resting place of Les Paul. However, it still has to go before city boards for government approvals. Final locations for the guitars are also not determined, according to Bruce.
In the meantime, Bruce said the guitars are impressive.
“Take a look. People will say what does a 10-foot guitar look like, and all of a sudden, they are going, ‘That’s what they look like,’” Bruce said. “I think that is going to cause all kinds of other people to go ‘Wow, this is really happening!’”
The launch of the project is scheduled for June 1, which corresponds with the opening date for the Freeman Friday Night Live weekly summer music event in downtown Waukesha.
Other GuitarTowns include:
- Los Angeles
- Cleveland
- Miami
- Orlando
- Austin
- Nashville
In This article
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The Springs Artisan Village
521 Wisconsin Ave, Waukesha, WI -
Almont Gallery
342 W Main St, Waukesha, WI -
Martha Merrell Books & Cafe
231 W Main St, Waukesha, WI
Dustin Block
1:04 pm on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Very cool! Should draw lots of visitors
Laura Strackbein
2:32 pm on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
I hope the steering committee selects Club 400 as a site for one of the guitars, that's where it all started for Les Paul!
Katie Piechotta
3:44 pm on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
I personally think there are better things to spend that money on rather than 10 foot tall guitars that will get vandalized and stolen by the college kids.
Anonymous
5:01 pm on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
As a college "kid", I personally think there are better things to steal and vandalize than 10 foot tall guitars. Come on, Katie, give us some credit.
Chris B
6:47 pm on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
This all seems a bit premature. Doesn't the request for the guitars to be placed around the city have to go in front of the Sign Board and maybe even the Common Council??
Chris P
5:54 am on Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Considering the other GuitarTown cities ( http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/ArtistsAndEvents/Guitartowns/ ), Waukesha should be proud to have this project. If the Common Council doesn't support it, then I'm sure Milwaukee will take the guitars. After all, Milwaukee already has a state-of-the-art Les Paul museum exhibit in Discovery World.
Joe Citizen
1:58 pm on Wednesday, February 1, 2012
I would be curious to see some numbers on how much each of the 7 city funded guitars cost. I think the heads of the various city departments who had positions cut in 2012 (so that we could all save 2 dollars on our property taxes) would also like to see these numbers. The "New Day" fund may be paying for them, but guess where that money came from? That would be the mayor's salary, which is paid for by taxpayers. Don't get me wrong - I'm all about jazzing up the city and making it look great. I'm not opposed to this project per-se, I would have rather seen the remaining 7 large guitars privately funded instead of tax-payer funded, especially after seeing police and fire positions cut from the 2012 budget. The "New Day" fund is still taxpayer money.
paradigm shift
2:17 pm on Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The mayor is generously contributing half of his take-home pay into the "New Day" fund. So far this fund is assisting in the restoration of the Farmer's Market Structure and the GuitarTown Arts Project. Each public employee has a right to do what he or she wants to do with their own pay.