VOA标准英语2014--Guitars Make Art in Addition to Music

 

Guitars Make Art in Addition to Music

Artists have created musical masterpieces with guitars for centuries, but at a music shop in Maryland, the instruments became canvases and were transformed into art.

The idea came to the store's owner, Tony Litz, after he bought an artistically¹ enhanced guitar at an auction². He calls it the "Beatles' Guitar."

"We call it that because it got a bunch of Beatles on it and [I] thought on drive home, let's have a guitar decorating contest," Litz said.

Decorating a guitar was a collaborative effort for Jim and Laurie Williams and their daughters Christina and Michelle.

They decorated part of the guitar using an art technique "Alcohol Ink", which allowed them to create very specialized³ patterns with a variety of colors. 

They arranged and colorized different images of Jimi Hendrix using a simple modge podge technique.

Edwin Zelaya called his piece "Star Guitar," based on Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry⁴ Night".  Edwin was inspired to compete in this contest after acing⁵ an art project of the same work in his high school art class.

Customers had 10 days to judge the entries.

When the votes were counted, the winner was "Three Sisters Heads Guitar" by 15-year-old Carla Araneda, who was born and raised in Chile, Ecuador and Peru before moving to the United State more than three years ago.

"I love to use sharpies and black ink," she said. "I also enjoy watching old illustrations from the 19th and early 20th centuries, which is a big influence in my choice of black traces."

So, while not everyone can play a masterpiece on the guitar, the contestants⁶ at least made a guitar their own special masterpiece, and that is beautiful music to Tony Litz's ears.

1 artistically   

adv.艺术性地

参考例句：

• The book is beautifully printed and artistically bound. 这本书印刷精美，装帧高雅。
• The room is artistically decorated. 房间布置得很美观。

2 auction   

n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖

参考例句：

• They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
• They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。

3 specialized   

adj.专门的，专业化的

参考例句：

• There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
• These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。

4 starry   

adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的

参考例句：

• He looked at the starry heavens.他瞧着布满星星的天空。
• I like the starry winter sky.我喜欢这满天星斗的冬夜。

5 acing   

vt.发球得分（ace的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Up to 4 years relevant experience on budget, cost acing report analysis. 4年以上财务经验，包括：预算经验，成本核算经验，财务报表经验。 来自互联网
• Ian: I always think of happy thoughts. Imagine yourself acing the test. 伊恩：我一直保持快乐的想法。想象你考试满分。 来自互联网

6 contestants   

n.竞争者，参赛者( contestant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The competition attracted over 500 contestants representing 8 different countries. 这次比赛吸引了代表8个不同国家的500多名参赛者。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency. 两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。 来自《简明英汉词典》