“My dog passed away while she was living with my
mother in a different state. I never got to say goodbye,
I was distraught. I thought that this would be a nice
homage to my dog who I love so much.”
Creston mixed a deep Oxblood paint for the body
- a perfect mate to the solid rosewood neck – and
as a tribute to the pup’s brindle coat, a back-painted
tortoise ’guard to accentuate the yellow-orange
stripes in the material.
A splash of gold glitter was applied to the body
during the finishing process to give it some flash and
match the gold hardware. When all was right, Vanessa
gave it the same name as the furry friend who served
as its namesake: Pony.
As usual, this guitar features locking Gotoh tuners,
a Mastery bridge and vibrato kit and a hulking
gold Lollar Thunderbird pickup in the bridge. One
deviation that may have changed the game for her
is the addition of a Lollar Jazzmaster pickup in the
neck position, the combination of the two lending a
uniquely tactile feel to her fingerstyle technique.
“It’s like writing with a ballpoint pen where you
can hear the way it moves across the surface of
the paper. It reminds me of the sound of a good
P-Bass where you hear your hand rolling down the
fretboard. The sound translates from your fingers to
your ears. It’s persuasive.”LATEST SQUEEZE
The last guitar we’re showing off from Vanessa’s
collection also happens to be her most recent
purchase. Phantasma is an early 1950s Gibson
LG-2 she compulsively scored from Chicago Music
Exchange purely because of its small body and
swooping, oversized pickguard.
“I saw it on Reverb.com and fell in love
immediately,” she says. “I just felt very drawn to it- it was meant for me.”
It’s a bit of an odd purchase as acoustic guitars are
a novelty for her these days, but Wheeler says that
the giant pickguard makes this guitar perfect for
strumming early in the morning. “It’s so quiet, I can
play it at 7am without having to wear headphones,
but it still has loads of personality.”
Aside from the blatant pickguard modification,
the guitar is largely as it was when it left the factory,
save for a few worrisome cracks, which kept the price
low. Once she hands it off to a luthier for those fixes,
she plans on installing a Gemini pickup in the sound
hole for live performance. As it is, the guitar plays
FACING PAGE ‘Creature’ is
a reimagining of the Fender
Super-Sonic short-scale
model – also designed in
collaboration with Creston Lea- featuring two Lollar Jaguar
pickups and Wheeler’s beloved
Mastery bridge
THIS PAGE ‘Pony’ is a tribute
to Vanessa’s dearly departed
pet dog, with its tortoiseshell
Ŵĭûl·ġƍÝŸāŸĈƽĈûƇĭōġƇĩĈŴƍŴɶž
brindled coatCOLLECTIONGUITAR MAGAZINE 79