In My Obsession, one creative person reveals their most prized collection.
The artist Larry Bell, 85, was born with severe undiagnosed hearing loss. “I didn’t know it, and neither did my parents,” he said. Unsurprisingly, music lessons were a struggle but, when he was about 17, he saw a strange guitar hanging in a pawnshop window in Downtown Los Angeles. “I had never seen anything quite like it because it had 12 strings instead of six,” he said. “I asked the man behind the counter if I could see it. I just dragged the back of my nails across the strings, and it was a complete epiphany. I heard it. And not only did I hear it, I could feel it.” Bell, who is best known for minimalist glass sculptures that explore the properties of light and color, has been collecting 12-string guitars ever since. Hundreds hang in their own climate-controlled room in his studio in Taos, N.M. Twelve-strings are more sensitive than six-strings: They’re difficult to tune and hard to play, and that’s what Bell appreciates. “My collection is about my passion for improbable things,” he said.
The collection: Acoustic 12-string guitars.
Number of pieces in the collection: “Roughly 300.”
Recent purchase: “I had some spare time [during the run of the retrospective ‘Larry Bell: Improvisations’ at the Phoenix Art Museum], and one of the curators drove me around to see some guitar shops. I came across a fantastic instrument made in Vietnam. The sound’s sort of a cross between a harpsichord and an organ.”
Weirdest: “In my mind, they’re all unusual because 12-strings aren’t a popular kind of guitar. Years ago, I commissioned a fantastic musician to make me a 12-string guitar that was small enough to slip under the seat of an airplane.”
Most expensive: “Ten thousand dollars for a McPherson [a guitar handmade in Sparta, Wis.].”
Most precious: “A little Mexican instrument that was made [about 50 years ago] in a town called Paracho, Michoacán. I paid about $600 [for it] at a store in L.A. It probably cost someone $12 when it was new. As it turned out, it was absolutely extraordinary in terms of its playability. How much a guitar costs is not necessarily what determines how good it is.”
One previously owned by somebody famous: “Actually, it’s just the opposite. A few musicians borrowed them and never gave them back.”
One that was damaged: “They crack all the time. It’s very dry here. I have four humidifiers that run around the clock to feed these guys water so they don’t turn to dust.”
Plans for the collection: “I wonder how many people’s guitars burned up in the terrible situation in Los Angeles. I’m thinking of giving the whole collection to somebody who can put the instruments in the hands of those who might need them.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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