NAZARETH, Pa. — Lehigh Valley guitar-maker C.F. Martin & Company is taking the concept behind Earth Day and expanding it to celebrate continued care for the planet via a new Sustainability display at its factory museum.
Martin last week revealed its new Earth Day guitar, the DSS Biosphere II, featuring artwork of a humpback mother and calf off the coast of Hawaii.
That fits the brand’s mission of “sustainability and preserving our planet for future generations.”
The exhibit is open at the museum 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.Martin Guitar museum
Previous iterations of that project include 2020’s 00L Earth Guitar, featuring an incredible view of the planet from space, and 2023’s OM Biosphere, depicting a gorgeous coastal reef.
Those projects are just one part of the Martin museum’s Sustainability display, showcasing its long history of implementing measures to protect and preserve natural resources.
The exhibit is open at the museum 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Special features include the Earth Day guitars and numerous other instruments that employ sustainable elements, along with informational plaques.
There's also a streaming video featuring Martin artist Robert Goetzl and Executive Chairman Christian Frederick Martin IV discussing the Earth Day guitars, sustainability and art.
Goetzl also is responsible for the displays that feature the guitars with his original work from the Earth Day series on them.
Martin efforts started early
Martin's history with sustainability stretches to the early 1900s, when ivory and tortoise shell were commonly used elements in many products, including instruments.
“Martin was one of the first companies to adopt alternative substitutes for those materials."Martin Director of Instrument Design Tim Teel
“Martin was one of the first companies to adopt alternative substitutes for those materials," Martin Director of Instrument Design Tim Teel said.
"So now you get products that were celluloid back in those days that looks like tortoise shell for binding, and you've got other materials that look like grain ivoroid, but they're man-made.”
The movement to limit or stop the use of precious materials stretched to the 1960s, when concern for rain forest devastation sparked Martin to explore ways to make better use of Brazilian rosewood, a prized wood often used in classic guitars.
“The Martin company started looking at three-piece backs as a way of getting better yield out of the same pieces of wood,” Teel said.
“Once that started, then they switched over to east Indian rosewood, which is plantation grown.”
As the east Indian rosewood trees are responsibly harvested from plantations — in the past, those trees served to protect tea crops — they are replanted to maintain a sustainable environment.
Teel said that particular type of rosewood is well-regulated, making it a great environment addition to Martin’s collection, in addition to producing the classic guitar maker’s celebrated sound.
'Very robust, very deep'
The company continues to build on its rich past of environmentalism with newer designs, Teel said.
“One last thing you'll see here in the display is our GPCE II inception, [which is made] out of maple," he said.
"The challenge to the team was to get this guitar made out of maple and voice it in a way that would be appealing to folks who liked the Martin sound."Martin Director of Instrument Design Tim Teel
"And the challenge to the team was to get this guitar made out of maple and voice it in a way that would be appealing to folks who liked the Martin sound.
"Because traditional Martin sound is very robust, very deep. It has a lot of overtones.
“When we put maple on our normal bracing recipe, it becomes bright and it becomes compressed. And so we figured out a way to lighten up the braces using skeletonized holes in the braces.
"Those holes lighten up the brace by about 20 percent, but it does not affect the structural integrity, which is really good. And it allows the top and back to move a little bit more.”
Thanks to Martin’s research and development team, those skeletonized braces feature a unique combination of hexagonal holes — noted for their use in Martin’s D-45 guitars — interspersed wooden X's which carry the Martin sound while using less wood.
According to Teel, there are plans to take the Inception line a step further with an assortment of domestic hardwoods such as cherry or sycamore.
The 000CE Al Cherry also features a recycled aluminum top that produces a specialized tone, Teel said.
'A living thing'
Martin in 1990 became the first guitar manufacturer to implement an environmental policy. That let it achieve Forest Stewardship Council Chain-of-Custody certification, as well as a Preferred by Nature Sustainability Framework certification for the OM Biosphere guitar, and partnerships with nonprofits and environmental groups pushing for recycling and sustainable practices.
“It gives me a great sense of pride because we want to be the company that survives for the next 191 years at this point, and we want to have a beautiful planet to live on."Martin Director of Instrument Design Tim Teel
Being able to show the public the efforts Martin has employed to preserve the environment is quite the fulfilling part of the job, Teel said, as it displays their mission to artists who are “very sensitive to those types of concerns in the environment.”
“It gives me a great sense of pride because we want to be we want to be the company that survives for the next 191 years at this point, and we want to have a beautiful planet to live on,” Teel said.
“The instruments we make are, in a way, a living thing. So even though a living thing, at some point, either died or gave its life to make an instrument, that instrument can live on well past our human lifetimes.
"They're heirloom pieces that you would hand down to the next generation. And of course, very conscious, and we want to make sure that we leave the earth in a better place than where we found it.”
'Every day is Earth Day'
The latest DSS Biosphere II still is available, but the older iterations might be a bit more difficult to find.
“I've designed this display case to have this very interesting, three-dimensional, seven-foot tree in this sort of mosaic design, not with tiles but individual paint colors," Goetzl says in the video.
"That sort of shows, in my mind as an artist, the energy of a tree and the way it just kind of swirls with color.”
"I invite everybody who's tuned in to come to the Martin museum in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and to come not just to see the beautiful guitars that are on display, but to read about these wonderful environmental initiatives that the company is part of, and encouraging."Martin artist Robert Goetzl
He says the braces on the tree will hold the numerous sustainable guitars.
And as for his latest work with the DSS Biosphere II, Goetzl said it is a tribute to the Keiki Kohola Project — Caring for Calves in Maui Waters, a nonprofit that aims to protect mother and calf humpbacks during their time in Hawaii.
Martin also made the group a generous donation in connection with the project.
“So, I invite everybody who's tuned in to come to the Martin museum in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and to come not just to see the beautiful guitars that are on display, but to read about these wonderful environmental initiatives that the company is part of, and encouraging.
"And we will encourage you to take care of the earth on Earth Day and all days, because every day is Earth Day.”
