George Amicay: Working Wonders with Wood

by Rick Messock

George Amicay is well known for his work as one of the Fender Custom Shop's Master Builders. While with the Custom Shop, George was involved with some of the most creative and unique Custom Shop guitars Fender has produced to-date.

Amicay was born and lives in Orange County, California, and until 1992, worked for aerospace manufacturer, Rockwell, in Southern California. For most of his life, George was not an artist, wood carver, or guitar builder. He became interested in woodcarving in late 1991 by chance, when he saw a carved mailbox post. He was intrigued by the idea of woodcarving and, having some time on his hands, bought a book on the subject. He didn't have much spare cash, so, to save a few dollars, he bought an X-Acto knife for carving rather than traditional carving tools.

His first project was a clock, which turned out pretty well, but George found his true calling at the Orange County College Swap Meet where a vendor was selling Gibson SG knock-off guitars. Amicay was inspired to do some sort of carving on the guitar and bargained the vendor down to $15 and change - all that he had in his pocket at the time. He took the guitar apart and carved some designs into it, but when reassembling it, found that he had misplaced some of the parts. He took the guitar to a nearby music store to replace the missing pieces. On seeing his work, the music store owner told him his carvings would probably be better suited to a Fender Stratocaster-style body and gave him the name of a person who made and sold Strat knockoffs. Since Amicay had just been laid off from his job at Rockwell, he convinced the owner to give him guitar bodies to carve and Amicay would take a percentage of the sale of the carved guitars.

The two were selling Amicay-carved guitars at swap meets when Amicay's artistry came to the attention of Mike Eldred of Fender, who was apparently impressed enough with the work that he asked Amicay to do some inlays on guitar necks. Although he had never done inlays, Amicay agreed and quoted a price of $25 per neck. He soon found that $25 per neck didn't begin to cover his labor, but nevertheless, soon delivered a batch of necks to Fender, where he met John Page (website), then director of the Fender Custom Shop. On learning what Amicay was charging Fender for the inlays, Page raised Amicay's fee on the spot to $60 per neck.

Impressed with the quality of Amicay's work, Page recalls giving Amicay one or two projects to see how he'd work out. According to Page, "We gave him some bodies and tried his hand at some things. I paid him outright as a vendor for the first two or three projects. But George brought in some pretty intense woodcarving. I didn't really think he would end up as a full-time employee, but we started getting a lot of Custom Shop orders and I had an opening for a Master Builder. I had just met George, and I thought that he would make a cool addition to the CS." For Amicay, there was another motivation: in April, 1993, his unemployment benefits would run out.

Page decided to take a chance on Amicay and hired him. It was not a popular decision with Fender management, but that view soon changed as Amicay began producing guitars.

Amicay didn't use traditional wood carving tools. He had no formal training, and when hired by Fender as a Master Builder, had only been carving for a year and a half. When Fender management asked him what he needed, he reluctantly asked for some chisels that he lined up at his workspace. But when he thought no one was watching, he used his X-Acto knife. While Page just thought it odd, Amicay was afraid to reveal that he didn't really know how to use the carving tools. He felt out of his league as he dealt with co-workers and management, all of whom, he considered, had many more credentials.

Most of Amicay's work revolved around the creation of "Art Guitars" - fully functional guitars enhanced artistically so that each is an individual work of art, more to be viewed than played.

For the most part, Amicay was allowed to express his creativity and Page's biggest challenge was reining him in and making sure that Amicay's ideas would result in a salable product. Amicay's talent let the Custom Shop offer products it was never able to offer before - one of his guitars had carved "rope" binding. This added a whole new dimension to the Custom Shop.

Amicay exercised his craft with incredible patience and Page recalls his amazement in watching Amicay work on the smallest details for hours. Amicay acknowledges his patience, but says it was combined with a burning desire to finish whatever project he was working on. Consequently, he would devote long hours to finish his projects quickly.

When asked which Custom Shop guitars were his most significant, Amicay, Pamelina, and Page all named the Catalina Blues Series guitars. The Catalina guitars were built to commemorate the Fender Catalina Blues Festivals (1997-2001) and were artistically spectacular. With these guitars, the combination of Amicay, Pamelina, and Page was at its creative peak. The carving is brilliant, and the guitars have the flash and timelessness that they needed to become classics. The third guitar in the series is perhaps the most striking, and featured intricate inlays, the Regina del Mar mermaid, gold lipstick pickups, and an inlaid and relief-carved headstock. The guitar has only a volume knob and pickup selector and no fret markers.

Amicay also enjoyed working on the 1993 Harley-Davidson Anniversary Stratocaster, produced by Fender to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of Harley-Davidson. It features a chromed Strat body with gold hardware, the words "Harley-Davidson" engraved on the upper bout of the guitar, a relief-carved pickguard with the Harley logo, a 12th fret inlay, and another Harley inlay on the headstock.

To George Amicay, the guitar represents functional art. "A plaque or statue is nice but decorative," said Amicay. The guitar is a musical instrument with a unique three-dimensional surface that can be modified to express different artistic intents. Interestingly, Amicay doesn’t play guitar - he has tried to learn, but can't pick up the guitar to practice without getting ideas and reaching for his sketchpad. To him, the challenge is to work within the parameters of the guitar, maintaining its integrity. An Amicay-carved Strat is still recognizable as a Strat.

Amicay left the Custom Shop in 2002. John Page had departed a few years before and following the merger of the Custom Shop and the Fender factory, Amicay felt the environment had changed, for the time being becoming somewhat more focused on production than art. He also didn't have the passion he once had and began to feel he was being left out of the loop on certain projects. He decided it was time to move on and expand his horizons.

Leaving Fender, he trimmed his life to the bare essentials and has come to the realization that he needs very little to be happy. He is in the midst of a 3 year hiatus, which will end in April, 2005. While he felt that most of his time at the Custom Shop was "magic," he regrets that he didn't capitalize on a lot of it because he was insecure and worried that he would be "found out." Now living in Newport Beach, California, Amicay says he is on good terms with Fender and still does freelance work for them, as well as individual projects for other artists.

_____

Our thanks to Stephen Pitkin (interview) and the Pitkin Studio (website) for providing all of the images used in this article, with the exception of the Harley-Davidson Stratocaster.

Related Articles

Artist Pamelina H and the Fender Custom Shop

Non-Vintage Collectible Fender Stratocasters

Three Experts Discuss the Non-Vintage Collectible Fender Stratocaster - Part One, Allan Clarke

Three Experts Discuss the Non-Vintage Collectible Fender Stratocaster - Part Two, Frank Glionna

Three Experts Discuss the Non-Vintage Collectible Fender Stratocaster: Part Three, Steve Pisani

Behind the Lens: An Interview with Photographer Stephen Pitkin