Four Horsemen

PHOTO: Self-portrait, post-NAMM.

The driving rains of Los Angeles shredded to tendrils, as sharp peaks of the San Jacinto Mountains eviscerated moisture-laden Pacific air. Twelve lanes of traffic condensed to four.

Sunlight hunted remaining moisture, evaporating a thousand miles of desert in the rain shadow of the eastern slopes. Emotion welled and water streamed from my eyes, involuntary tears of joy, and relief.

The intensity, pressure, and excitement of the trade show uncoiled itself from around my internal organs. Alone, I laughed out loud at the first saguaro, as if an old friend. The gentle shimmering in my ears an audible reminder of thunderous cacophony left behind.

"If you believe god is music, NAMM will make you an athiest."

FMoF

And yet, there were moments of sublime musicality, and musicianship. Great camaraderie, as the four of us rustled like outlaws. A realization that sparks we struck are about to grow into something much larger. We will talk about those moments soon enough.

"Your guitar sticks in my head, and I can’t stop telling my friends. Millions of guitars at NAMM...yours is the one I remember."

LH

Companions dispersed, I drifted south, to Tucson.

I sought council from those who had passed before me, in the form of artifacts at the Amerind Foundation. Master craftsmanship revealed in every chip of each arrowhead, a necessity when working tools are stone. Efficiency, displayed as delicate aerodynamic functionality — a few ounces of precisely aimed rock capable of dropping two thousand pounds of running animal in a collapsed meat pile.

My cousin Scott built the beautiful Mission Style rift sawn oak couches in the main display hall of the museum: BAKER + HESSELDENZ

Mostly, though, I needed nature. My soul is acclimated to solitude, my mind to flowing streams of thought. Metaphorically naked I immerse in the forms around me, artifacts of wind and water.

Comments

[Jeffrey Collins]

Thanks Rick for letting us know about a few interesting places to check out in AZ. I've never been to the desert yet, but have always felt a closeness to it. Maybe because I try to live a lot of my life in isolation too. I like the quiet of a nice open space with no airplanes overhead and no boom boom cars anywhere near me. Cheers.

Glad the NAMM show sounded like it worked clearly in your favor.

[Mike D.]

hey rick i'm mike daviau, i've never commented before, but im a long time admirer of your work, i am a college student, but an artist and wood worker as well, i come from 3 generations of fine carpentry. i find your work truly inspirational, they seem to embody a soul and the only phrase that i feel can describe your work is a sort of "peaceful chaos" all of them, beautiful, complex, yet elegant and never pretentious. i have built one guitar, and want to build another more seriously this time around, i look forward to purchasing/licensing some of your creative and and functional products. but i was speaking with tony levin today, and he seemed rather interested in your work. so i hope he gets in touch with you! an artist always needs patrons! (p.s. im looking also looking forward to seeing pics of "blur" i saw one pick from namm, it looks AMAZING!)

[monster]

I am a lifelong resident of NJ but I can totally relate to the peacefulness of wide open, dry rocky spaces. Sedona AZ is one of my favorite places in the world and a haven for me when I let the world beat me down.

NAMM was a great experience (much more on that later) and I think an airing out of the brain in a beautiful location is just what the doctor ordered. I drank beer and hung out with musicians in the John Wayne airport the whole next day. Not the same thing but fun in its own way.

[Nick Neilson]

"What I hope that these pictures say is that we need wilderness. We need wild places where we will not see houses, cars, fences, signs, bullet casings, or even trails. We need places where there is no trace of human interference, because these places will then serve as our standard. We need these places because they cleanse us. Whatever pressures and frustrations we have in our lives in the cities, we can lose them here. When we walk in beauty, all the garbage in our lives disappears.” – David Muench

From “David Muench’s Arizona – Cherish the Land, Walk in Beauty”

http://muenchphotography.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=29&category_id=2&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1