Wood-burning artist Steven Hawkes’ guitar story began with a phone call from the people at PepsiCo.
They had simply looked up the Alma artist on the internet.
The company was introducing a new cinnamon-based soft drink called Pepsi Fire at the Country Music Television awards show, he was told.
And they asked if he could perform his artwork on a guitar – live – at one of the parties surrounding the show in Nashville.
The company would then auction it off or perhaps give it away as a prize, Hawkes said.
But Hawkes had to disappoint them, explaining about his often photo-like images of pyrography.
“It takes 60 or 70 hours of work,” he said.
Although the party and the CMT awards show was less than a week away, it was nevertheless agreed that he would try to deliver a finished product in that time.
Hawkes, who had never worked on a guitar before, now had to find one – an unfinished one.
When designing by soldering iron, the fumes from the sealer used in guitars is difficult to overcome, he said.
But Marshall Music in Lansing had such a guitar – in two pieces and made of pine, a wood however, that’s too soft for ideal wood burning, Hawkes said.
Even so, he took that guitar and put about 50 hours of work into it over a three-day period, he said.
“I usually do realism on wood burnings, but I couldn’t do that with softer wood,” he said.
Using the natural wood grain, he instead embellished that with trees.
The artwork continues “throughout the guitar,” he said.
Once finished, he then took the guitar back to Marshall Music and the people there custom strung it and finished it.
Hawkes took the guitar back home and waited for the car the folks at Pepsi were sending to pick him up.
“It was Tuesday (June 6) at 2:30 a.m.,” he said.
When he arrived in Nashville, a representative from CMT was shocked when he saw the guitar.
It wasn’t at all what they were expecting.
Any idea of auctioning it or giving it away was immediately abandoned.
CMT would keep it thank you, and display it, Hawkes said.
Although it was his first guitar, it wasn’t his first artwork on musical instruments.
Hawkes’ brother is a drummer and he completed the art work on his brother’s snare drum. That caused such a sensation that it was written about in Modern Drummer magazine.
The CMT/Pepsi event looks like it may have an even bigger impact.
Hawkes said Thursday that he received another order.
Country/Rockabilly enthusiasts of a certain age may remember the band Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen who had a hit with their cover of the 1950’s classic, “Hot Rod Lincoln.”
Bill Kirchin, guitarist and songwriter was a member of the band through the mid 1970s, and he’s still performing.
He ordered two.