G.E. Smith's Great Guitars Are on View in 'Hand Made' at The Church

“The guitar is one of the most popular instruments in the history of the world,” G.E. Smith, the renowned guitarist, said on October 6, during the opening reception of “Hand Made: Guitars According to G.E. Smith & The American Artists’ Hand Archive.”

“More people have played the guitar than I think all of the other instruments combined. It’s all over the world, and why is that? It’s portable,” Smith said, joking that the guitar is much easier to haul around than a Steinway piano.

The Church in Sag Harbor hosts this fall’s exhibition Wednesdays through Sundays, from noon until 5 p.m., until December 22.

The exhibit brings together two collections — a group of 16 rare and classic guitars, and a collection of 31 bronze cast sculptures depicting the hands of visual artists.

Smith has selected both acoustic and electric guitars that date from 1810 to 1992. Most of the guitars come from Smith’s personal collection, providing insight into what he looks for and values in the instruments. The bronze hands are part of an ongoing series by Vanessa Hoheb and Thomas Donahue, “The American Artist’s Hand Archive,” that includes the hands of artists Jasper Johns, Martin Puryear, Maya Lin, Titus Kaphar, Beverly Pepper, Robert Indiana, Mary Frank, William Tucker and many others.

Smith, Hoheb and Donahue worked with The Church’s chief curator, Sara Cochran, to install these objects in an integrated exhibition on the mezzanine level of the building.

As Cochran explained: “This is an important exhibition for The Church, given our belief that creativity is something that is open to everyone. It provides a unique opportunity for our visitors to look through the eyes of G.E. Smith and study the hands of many well-known artists — integral tools of their remarkable careers. Illustrating that any creative practice is both a mental and a physical exercise, these objects demonstrate the dedication of artists and the ways that the artistic and imaginative activities influence our bodies and our lives.”

During the opening reception, Smith pointed out the oldest guitar in his collection, an Italian instrument from 1810.

“This was a regular person who had this guitar,” Smith explained, adding that most guitars in the early 1800s were made for royal families with pearls, jewels and intricate designs. It is rare to see guitars from that time period because the lower class couldn’t afford to take care of the instruments and keep them in pristine condition.

“The interesting thing to me is that in the 19th century, this was the size of guitars,” Smith said of the Italian-made guitar, which is about half the size of the American-made guitars in the 1900s.

“They didn’t start making big guitars until right at the turn of the 20th century. They wanted to make them louder, because the world was getting louder,” he said.

The loudest thing in the town back then was a church bell, so musicians didn’t need big, loud guitars.

The exhibition is meant to serve as an overview of guitars, mainly in the United States, and the development of the instrument from 1810 until the late 1990s.

Smith recalls the moment he first saw a guitar, when he was 4 years old. It was hanging in the basement of his mother’s house and belonged to his uncle George. He remembered taking the guitar to his backyard and smacking the low E string and watching it vibrate.

“I realized that that vibration made the sound, and the whole world just smacked together and made sense,” he recalled.

Years later, his uncle and his girlfriend gifted Smith with a low-end Martin guitar. His uncle’s girlfriend had an Irish nanny who babysat her kids; the nanny, about 15 years old, also played guitar. Smith said she showed him how to pluck the strings of the guitar.

“I still have the piece of paper where she wrote the song out. A song called ‘Marie’s Wedding,’” Smith said while humming the tune.

For his 11th birthday, Smith was given an electric guitar and from that point on, he started playing in bands.

When Daryl Hall and John Oates formed their duo Hall & Oates, Smith was paid $200 a week — $100 to play the guitar and $100 to drive one of the station wagons. After a couple of months, things took off for the band with tours, MTV music videos, worldwide tours and recording sessions.

Smith was the lead guitarist for Hall & Oates during the band’s heyday from 1979 to 1985, playing on five No. 1 singles. After Hall & Oates went into a hiatus in 1985, Smith joined the sketch-comedy show “Saturday Night Live,” serving as bandleader and co-musical director of the Saturday Night Live Band. He has recorded and performed with many acclaimed artists, including David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, Tina Turner and Tracy Chapman. He was the initial lead guitarist in Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour from 1988 to 1990 and served as musical director and a guitarist of Dylan’s 30th anniversary Concert Celebration at Madison Square Garden in 1992. From 2010 to 2016, Smith played both guitar and bass in Roger Waters’s The Wall live tour.

“The American Artists’ Hand Archive” was established with the mission to assemble an ongoing archive of bronze casts of artists’ hands with the intent to exhibit them to the public. Hoheb is the founder and director of the archive. She began her apprenticeship at age 17 in the studio of her father, Bruce Hoheb, mastering the skills and techniques of sculptural enlarging, mold-making, bronze casting, and restoration. She has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, led the team that restored the skin of the Statue of Liberty, and oversaw the restoration and conservation division at the Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry.

Donahue is the archive’s artistic director. His expertise is in sculpture, historic preservation and architectural design. He curates a collection of early 19th century plaster molds, has researched and restored important historic interiors from Providence to Atlanta, worked as an artist designing for Tiffany & Co. and completed many private commissions. He is the artistic director for the General Society of Mechanic and Tradesmen of the City of New York.

Hoheb and Donahue collaborate with the artist whose hands they are casting to identify a pose and an individualized patina that illustrates the personality and career of each of these artists.

Along with the guitar exhibition, The Church continues its Knowledge Friday series with local luthier Carlos Barrios on Friday, October 21. A luthier is a maker of guitars — a skill Barrios taught himself. Since building his first guitar in 1993, Barrios has gone on to repair and create master guitars of the highest caliber for famous musicians on the East End. The evening will begin with a screening of “A Guitar Maker’s Path: The Search for Tone,” directed by John Jinks, a short documentary on Barrios that follows the creation of one of his guitars from start to finish. Barrios’s band, Out East, will perform with the guitar highlighted in the documentary.

“I am more into building guitars than playing them,” Barrios said during the exhibition opening at The Church, adding that he plays the bass for his band. Barrios’s relationship with woodworking began early on when his father taught him the carpentry trade.

“I offer a high standard of woodworking. I have been doing it for a long time,” Barrios said while admiring Smith’s collection on display. His original plan was to get into furniture making, but then music came along, and he said he fell in love with making instruments.

Knowledge Friday with Carlos Barrios is Friday, October 21, at 6 p.m. Following the screening Barrios will be interviewed by The Church co-founder April Gornik about his life and career as a luthier. Tickets are $15.

On Saturday, October 22, at 5:30 p.m., G.E. Smith speaks about the guitars in “Hand Made” in an evening that allows guests to see the instruments through his eyes as he provides insight into what he values in them. Tickets are $15.

Other upcoming events include a Saturday, November 5, screening of “The Chisels Are Calling,” a documentary by Trevor Laurence that profiles John Monteleone, the world’s greatest guitar builder. The screening is at 6 p.m. and tickets are $15. A Q&A Laurence and Monteleone follows.

On Thursday, December 15, a 7 p.m. a “Portraits” concert will feature Smith and Jorma Kaukonen — a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a Grammy recipient, founding member of Jefferson Airplane and the still-touring Hot Tuna. Tickets are $80 to $1,000 and doors open at 6:30 p.m.

In addition, an upcoming Insight Sunday event will provide the public with an opportunity to handle the hand sculptures, followed by a live public hand casting with a celebrated artist of Hoheb and Donahue’s choosing.

The Church is at 48 Madison Street, Sag Harbor. For more information and to purchase tickets for all events, visit thechurchsagharbor.org.