TERESA BOSKO
ARTIST
Started with an old thrift store guitar I had re-purposed for my store, Petuniabegonia... Copyright 2015 Teresa Bosko. All rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
Sanded-down guitar. Panel pattern was designed to loosely suggest Mexican oil-cloth, as well as echo design in Viva El Gato! Flowers are colored pencil & cats are black velvet specialty paper. Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
A cat luchador...? Naw, too repetitious. Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
Time to bust-out the pin-striping sword-stripers! It's been a few years, and it shows... But I'm all about the beauty of imperfection. Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
Making the "frame." Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
More details added... Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
My box of fake prickly-pears arrives! I so wanted to be able to have live cactus plants throughout the restaurant, but little sunlight & potential lawsuits nixed that idea. Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
The "planted" guitar. That white object at the end of the cactus stem is a mini-luchador head, like those in Tacocat Siesta-Fiesta. Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
First phase. Something kept bothering me about this... Yes, it was leaning towards that "sinister thing" again... Can't have that. Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved. El Gato Taqueria, Akron, Ohio.
El Gato Guitar-O: Two month's later... much happier! Copyright 2016 Teresa Bosko. All Rights Reserved.
EL GATO TAQUERIA
El Gato Guitar-O
Part of the challenge in creating all of the art for El Gato was the ability to work within the mucho-macho theme of Luchadores, Sci-Fi, and Surf, as well as the interior color palette consisting of deep browns, orange, red and black, without creating a man-cave. The answer, of course, was to balance the masculine vibe by injecting the space with a heavy amount of "pretty." There was no lack of inspiration to draw upon, with Mexico's abundant natural beauty and vibrant artistic heritage
This piece is unabashedly decorative in nature, made simply for the beauty it provides. A little research led me to the fact that Paracho de Verduzco, a small city in Mexico, is famous for being home to the best-sounding handmade guitars in the country. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the guitar used in El Gato Guitar-O looks amazingly similar to the guitar monument located in the center of the musical city. Muy Bueno!