Exhibits at Fullerton Museum Center. Hours: noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays. General admission: $4. Information, (714) 738-6545, www.ci.fullerton.ca.us/museum.
The Fullerton Museum Center has carved out a permanent space for one of the city’s icons, guitar inventor Leo Fender. The museum within a museum has been years in the making. In the early stages, it’s a little underwhelming. The first exhibit, which runs for two years, is a series of ads for Fender guitars dubbed “You Won’t Part With Yours Either: Robert Perine and Fender Guitars.” The ads show 1960s-era hipsters skateboarding, surfing and skydiving with Fender guitars in tow. They were created by Perine, who handled sales and marketing for Fender. The ads are cool, but the exhibit leaves visitors wanting more,more guitars or displays of machinery used by Fender, one of a group of early Orange County industrial entrepreneurs who created medical devices, aerospace parts and, in Fender’s case, guitars. Back in 2002, the museum had a grander exhibit with guitars that showcased Fender’s impact on music. Future exhibits are likely to show more, including about Fender himself. Worth the trip is “Rhinestones and Twangin’ Tones,” an exhibit of deliciously gaudy outfits worn by country stars of the 1950s and 1960s and designed by Ukrainian immigrant Nudie Cohn. The outfits are laden with rhinestones and other embellishments that depict cactus landscapes, wagon wheels, flowers or other hokey designs. The exhibit is a hoot, with actual outfits from the collection of OC’s Mac Yasuda and pictures of Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons and even Elvis Presley in a $10,000 gold lam & #233; suit.
,Michael Lyster
