Ridley Stallings, an artist from Savannah, Georgia constructs the most irresistible guitars from old painted lumber and agricultural hardware. A woman on a mission, she has a workshop in Georgia where she employs aspiring artists to help her fabricate her designs. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to have some for our blues theme store in Navasota. Ridley has that special designer's eye, different from some person handy with tools and trying to make a buck, which literally marries and transforms unrelated objects into artwork.
They are guitar sculptures. They are merely recycled materials, carefully fashioned into collections of Americana, and they are damned well designed.... Most junkers who try to do this kind of thing fail in these last two criteria. AND, Stalling's sculptures are highly original and beautiful; Multi-media, multi-market appeal, with multi-leveled meanings... that's bang for the buck!
I have four of her outstanding guitars at Blues Alley. And copy-cats need not apply... I've already had several smart-asses offer that "they could have done that..."
But they didn't! And they couldn't. The fact that they think they can tells me they have no idea what genius and craftsmanship they are looking at. That's the big difference between Art and artsy-craftsy. The difference between pathfinder and plagerist.
At Blues Alley we pride ourselves in having the real deal.
I'm going to hate it when somebody dares to buy one of these!
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