I’ve been playing my ’72 Fender P-bass since I was 14 and over the past few decades my collection of guitars and basses got to the point that I didn’t know how many I had. A common problem with musicians, as some were in cases, some on guitar stands, and some on hooks in the basement and others at practice rooms. So to remind me how much I loved these wired pieces of art I went searching for a way to display my favorite guitars on the wall in our living room. That search ended with me creating the guitarMatz™ graphic guitar hanger which we just introduced at the Eastwood Guitars booth at NAMM 2010 this January.

The guitarMatz is an innovative wall mounting system that displays your guitar in front of a 48” x 18” graphic of your choice. The system works with a steel wall mounted guitar hanger that holds a channeled frame. The graphic sits inside the frame and a guitar hook securely bolts into the wall mount. The guitarMatz is designed and built in Canada out of heavy-duty epoxy eCoated steel and it is built to last. The result is a large wall graphic that looks great either with or without your guitar hanging on it. But the best result is, that with this art piece, you may be able to convince your spouse into allowing you to hang your guitar in the family space.

GuitarMatz: Wall Mounting System for Guitars

How did I get here you ask? Well I spent years searching. I looked at all of the available methods of displaying guitars trying to get my guitars out of the basement. First I found the rather overpriced museum style framed boxes that look more like a coffin than a cool place to display your prized Mosrite. They didn’t look right for me. Then I found and purchased a Rockcase by Warrick – with its flightcase aluminum frame and plexi window, it is very cool, but it looks way too much like it just came off the tour bus. My Rockcase is in the basement holding my Johnny Winter autographed Firebird, it never made it over the couch. Then I looked at the giant multi-guitar cabinets that take up half a room and will cost you your vacation to Disney. That really wasn’t my style or in my budget.

But what I did like the most, were the custom framed collectable guitars that fill all the memorabilia shops in Vegas. Big, bold and exciting with photos and graphics relating to the guitar, their only problem was the guitar was just an expensive signed art piece that you couldn’t play. So I put my years of marketing, design and visiting guitar shops together and created the guitarMatz. It is a simple logical way to display your guitar. It looks great because it is a frame and you choose the graphic that best suites you, your guitar and your room. And the best thing about the guitarMatz is that your guitar is right there… just pick it up off the hanger and you can noodle away for hours while everyone else watches some mindless dance contest.

I am very excited about how great the response to guitarMatz has been from guitar players, retailers and their spouses. We are now developing some very interesting licensing deals and some special artist programs for new and exciting graphics. And we also have the flexibility to allow you to create and upload your own photos and graphics. Just jump over to www.guitarmatz.com to check them out.

MyRareGuitars.com will soon be offering the complete line of guitarMatz as one of their ongoing products.

Do yourself and your guitars a favor, take them out of the case and put them up on your walls on a guitarMatz. They will look amazing, you’ll play them more and if you’re real lucky they may even make it to your living room.

Grant Ivens, rgd, is a Toronto musician, writer, creative director, TV producer, married with two talented young daughters, and is currently working on several new products aimed at bringing his ‘brandSimple” design sense to the music industry via his product company ShowOff Gear. You can contact him at grant@showoffgear.com