Toshiro’s Lady

It all began with friendships forged at The Holy Grail Guitar Show. In 2018 Japanese luthier Kaz Goto (Jersey Girl Homemade Guitars) invites several of his colleagues to join him in ‘Guitars - 9 different tones you have never seen’. In collaboration with art dealer Daisuke Ushiko the 9 guitars made by luthiers from all over the world will be displayed at the Tokyo Art Show in 2019 as well as Yamano Music.

The shape of this guitar is very different from Michael’s usually full-bodied, round and sensual form. Here Michael drew inspiration from the shape of the Japanes Kimono. He associates the lines and colours with a formal Kimono worn on special occasions, where usually the female form is hidden behind beautiful but often stiff and angular extended cloth, experiencing an almost cubist distortion. This happens even more so in this special piece, where even the senusal round shapes of the halved Tibetan ball cannot break this up and so it remains contrary.

When it came to naming the instrument Michael looked to his passion for film. An avid fan of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa Michael very much admired the actor Toshiro Mifune, who appeared in several of Kurosawa’s movies, and so it became ‘Toshiro’s Lady’.