Linda Manzer – coming full circle
It’s been 50 years since Linda Manzer made her first guitar. Now, at the peak of her career, she has received the Order of Canada for her trailblazing contributions and achievements as one of the world’s leading luthiers.
When Manzer started out making guitars in the 1970s the going was tough for the first Canadian woman to enter the field. “The guys I worked with were not fazed by having a girl work alongside them, but I heard through music stores that when someone was ready to buy a guitar of mine and they found out that a girl made it, they wouldn’t buy it. Seems ridiculous now,” she says. Still, Manzer persisted with her quiet confidence, inimitable skill and passion for her craft. It’s no wonder she has made guitars for the likes of Pat Metheny, Bruce Cockburn, Stephen Fearing and Gordon Lightfoot, just to name a few.
Manzer’s most celebrated guitar is “Pikasso”, which she made for jazz guitarist Pat Metheny in 1984. It has 42 strings, three necks, two sound holes, two doors and a wedge- shaped guitar body that tilts the guitar top towards the player, allowing them to better view the enormity of strings. Linda describes this build as “complete guitar blasphemy,” but in reality it was a design marvel; the first ergonomic wedge guitar that she’s now known for the world over.
The Pikasso Guitar
Linda describes this build as “complete guitar blasphemy,” but in hindsight it was pure brilliance.
Group of Seven
Manzer’s Group of Seven guitar, inspired by Lawren Harris’s work.
How do woods sound?
However, ergonomics alone do not make a guitar. “It’s like making a chair where you care what it sounds like,” says Manzer, as she talks about the tonal qualities guitar woods must possess. For this reason, her favourite part of the guitar building process is at the beginning. “I love the initial decision to start assembly, collecting the woods, making decisions about how they sound, how they go together.”
But Manzer has a talent for pulling together more than just the pieces of a guitar. Her sense of community is strong, whether it’s for the global community or her “littermate apprentices” from the 1970s. Linda Manzer’s ability to ignite the people around her to “work together and be stronger” is her hidden super power.
Group of Seven inspiration
In 2012, after a trip to the National Gallery in Ottawa, Manzer felt a similarity between the Group of Seven painters and the seven apprentices, including Manzer, who worked under Jean Larrivée in the early years. Manzer approached her colleagues and proposed that each maker build a guitar to pay homage to a particular Group of Seven member. They all agreed and three years later the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario, was backing the project.
As a last-minute decision, Manzer chose Lawren Harris and his Mount Lefroy painting for her guitar, wondering, “If the painting morphed into a guitar what would it look like?” Stretching herself to the limits, she merged the concept of an arch top and flat top guitar together to create a thicker top, enabling her to carve lines mimicking the ice on the mountain.
“I thought, ‘Don’t be afraid, think big. If you don’t take a chance, what’s the point?’ I did everything I could think of and I thought people may hate it, but I’m having my own relationship with this guitar. I’m being true to my interpretation of the spirit,” explains Manzer.
In 2022, Manzer responded to the war in Ukraine by building the “Sunflower Guitar” for the people of Ukraine. This gesture inspired many around the world to donate to vital humanitarian aid raising over $200,000, as the guitar travelled North America being autographed and played by notable musicians. As part of the guitar’s journey. Manzer was able to take it to Joni Mitchell at her home in California. This was a “full circle moment” for Manzer. “I had the opportunity to spend time with her, and talk to her alone, one on one. She is responsible for my career. She is the reason I started my career and I got to tell her that.”
From artist to artist
As furniture makers, we all partake in the opportunity to make something beautiful, but rarely do we create a piece that’s passed to other artists who, in turn, use our creation to make art for others. Manzer lives that dream every day.
“It fuels me. It makes my world make sense standing at my workbench gluing wood together and making; knowing you can’t live without hope,” Manzer says. “I think what I’m building is something that is going to have a life of its own, and so my wish is that somebody will create something beautiful with what I’ve created.”
Karen McBride - [email protected]
Karen is a furniture maker with a passion for vintage woodworking machinery, photography, birding, vegetable gardening and her constant companion Daffy, a big hairy Bouvier des Flandres shop dog.
