November 30th, 2009 • Ross Martin

Richard Shay Just Made Me This Incredible Guitar

My friend Harry Oppenheimer (the handsome gentleman in the above photo) took me to see his buddy, the legendary Chicago photographer and artist Richard Shay.   Richard's famous for his work with Oprah, Ellen, Michael (Jordan) and many others.

Richard took us inside his girlfriend's house and showed us what he's been working on.   He snapped photos of my 7 month-old son and me as he showed Harry and me portraits of celebs and their families, as well as some experiments in which Richard paints his photographs onto guitars in 14 carat gold leaf. 

The next day, Richard called Harry and asked if he could come over.  When he arrived, he handed me THIS:  

How the heck did he do this?  He literally ran to a shop, bought a guitar, then stayed up all night in a fit of creativity and applied photos of Theo and me to the guitar.  He went to bed at 5AM, woke up at 11, and finished.  This is what the back of the guitar looks like, with a photo of Theo:

Richard's not just an incredible photgrapher, he's an incredible guy. He's like a little kid. He plays with remote controlled helicopters, he flies himself around the world to teach kids in 3rd world countries how to use a camera, he paints your image onto a freakin guitar and then drives it over to hand it to you! And now that I have this thing, it's going in my office tomorrow. 

It's like the ultimate Christmas gift for, say, Jack White or Steven Rubenstein.  Right? 

Here's Richard's site.  He doesn't talk about this stuff yet because this is one of the first he's ever made.  But he's gonna make more, and they're gonna sell out, so here's your chance to get in early with Richard and get one.

Here's the inimitable Richard Shay actually painting Theo and me onto the guitar in gold leaf…

Here's the guitar drying along with a cymbal and two mirrors Richard also made, each with Theo's face.