Instruments are time tested and worn tools we use to carve the world of vibration to form sound and music. They have a shapely beauty to them that I re-interpret to get perspective on the form we take for granted.

I might not have smashed as many guitars as Jimi Hendrix, but certainly more violins. Like Hendrix, the destruction is part of the art being created and is a performance within itself. I’ve often documented their demise, sometimes slow and methodical, sometimes more consciously violent, less controlled and performance art based, where the sound and visuals have an added level to the work. I reassemble what remains, attempting to orderly represent the instrument’s tension released during its sudden transformation.

In later musical instrument work, I’ve dropped the destruction of already irrepairable instruments and created sculpted instruments from new and recycled parts. A metal guitar made from Klimt’s Tree of Life, a clarinet from old bicycle parts, a Mexican bass guitar from antique farm equipment and lobster traps parts, a stringed medieval instrument from a rowboat oar.

When asked if the instruments are functional, if the sculptures make sound or can be played, Savage responds, “The goal is not to surpass their sound quality, but to visually get us out of the mind-accepted box. Some do make a un-tuned sound as they have my version of strings. When the instrument body’s form has been released in it’s destruction, when vibration ceases, and silence moves in, I realize just how much tension is built into an instrument.”