This is another ‘art’ guitar in our TYS collection. Fender Custom Shop gives its master builders room to do one-off projects. This freedom was given to Yuriy Shishkow. The result was the Fender Laguna Beach Esquire, presented at NAMM Winter 2006.
From handcrafting many of his own woodworking tools to showcasing his world-class luthier skills and custom inlay work, Yuriy Shishkov is truly one of the last of the renaissance guitar builders. It was in the small confines of a root cellar in his hometown of Gomel in the former Soviet Union that Shishkov got his start building guitars for friends and colleagues.
When he arrived in the United States in 1990, Shishkov settled in the Chicago area and collaborated with a range of top artists, including late shredder Dimebag Darrell of Pantera, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, Nuno Bettencourt, Robin Zander of Cheap Trick and Paul Stanley of Kiss. Shishkov joined the Fender Custom Shop’s Master Builder team in 2000 and has crafted truly magnificent instruments featuring exquisite detail and inlay work.
One of his unforgettable creation is this guitar which incorporates a canvas painting on the guitar, a case that unfolds into an easel and a matching framed painting.
