How 'Guitar Buddha' Arrived in the Room
#548 / Flood Time Capsule: 2009
This time of year always makes us remember a lovely Christmas gift that we received from our old friend, the late Carter Taylor Seaton. The gift, which still has a place of honor in our band room, she brought to us 16 years ago tonight.
For many years, starting about two decades ago, Carter and her loving husband Richard Cobb were regulars at our weekly jam sessions.
“I can’t sing a lick,” Carter once said, “but I think I know all the words!”
Besides the music, Carter and Richard loved the camaraderie and the storytelling always sandwiched between the songs. An evening’s talk could trot off in dozens of different directions, from the latest jokes on the Internet to politics, psychology, medicine, word play, myths and mountain lore and so much more.
The Many Sides of Carter Seaton
Carter, who died at Christmastime last year, was a renaissance woman. She was a highly regarded author and painter, but perhaps her greatest love was for sculpture.
“I am a ceramic sculptor and author who came to both late in life,” she once said. “I had tried several visual media, but never liked the results… until I put my hands on the silky surface of clay.”
Sculpture, she said, “allows me to mold a world to suit myself, or to express the way I see it. It’s mine, yet I want it to speak to viewers … in such a way that they have to decide if they see it the same way.”
How Carter came to see The Flood was shaped, in part, by those wild and wooly weekly conversations. For instance, when religious topics arose, Carter was especially amused at just how ecumenical the chatter could become, since around the room on any given evening might be Catholics and Jews, Jehovah Witness members, old-time Baptists and Methodists, but also students of Eckankar and Buddhism.
The Birth of Guitar Buddha
That was very much on her in the waning days of 2009 when Carter set about crafting the surprise she wanted to present to her musical family of friends.
The result was a work she entitled “Guitar Buddha,” with a likeness of Charlie Bowen’s head above the body of a guitar atop legs folded into a lotus position.
Our mutual buddy Larry Kendall, on hand for the weekly jam session that night, got these great pictures of the work.
Guitar Buddha still commands the corner of the band room where Carter and her Richard usually sat for the evening’s fun.
This piece captures such beautiful stillness. The way sculpture can embody both person and practice (like combining the lotus position with the guitar body) creates this layered meaning that words alone struggle to hit. I remeber once someone gave me handmade pottery that now sits on my desk, and theres something about physical objects made wiht intention that keeps relationships alive way past any expected timeline.