Crazy Cat Luthiers-what kind of a name for a custom acoustic guitar building business is that anyway!? Well, let me tell you the story.
We have always been cat lovers and our first was named Madeline. She was a quiet cat, never really meowing although she was a pretty typical cat in her mannerism. When I purchased my first guitars, I would practice occasionally but Terry was never pleased with the way I played and would leave the area so she couldn’t hear me. Quite frankly, I sucked at it. However, Madeline didn’t seem to mind. She would come out to the porch and sit beside me while I attempted to make music from the pitiful noise I was creating. Madeline was my one and only adoring fan! LOL!
A couple of years after she passed, we adopted Penny, a mix of domestic cat and Bengal. She is absolutely insane, full of energy and doesn’t stop meowing! Quite the contrast from Madeline! Thus, the nickname “Crazy Cat” came to be.
When I began building acoustic guitars, I wanted to create a cat paw print to carve into the side, a second sound hole. I searched the internet and looked at hundreds of clip art images and photos of cat paws but didn’t find one I liked. One day, Terry came across an article on photographing a cat’s paw. It was quite laborious; you had to place the cat onto a sheet of glass (someone holding it, of course) while you lay under the glass with your camera to photograph it. Yeah, right!
Well, we got a great idea, “Let’s put the cat onto the scanner and copy her feet!” Worked like a charm! The cat was fascinated long enough by the scanning device to stay put. Not only did we get a paw print we could turn into a line drawing, but we got Penny’s paw print! This is now our signature for all our guitar builds.
So that, my friends, is how the name Crazy Cat Luthiers was born into existence. We will continue to include the cat’s paw somewhere on our custom acoustic guitar builds to honor our crazy cat, Penny.
Love and Peace,
Gloria