Carlos Vives is ready to give back to his community…
Tis November, the 54-year-old Colombian singer-songwriter is planning to auction off a guitar studded with 50,000 Swarovski crystals that he played in concerts on his Mas Corazon Profundo tour of Bogota and Santa Marta.
The instrument will be put up for bids on November 4 in Bogota to raise money for a social project in Santa Marta, the city where Vives was born.
“The guitar goes on the auction block to collect funds to rebuild the sports complex in the Pescadito neighborhood,” a project he shares with ex-soccer star Carlos “Pibe” Valderrama, also a native of that city, according to the auctioneers.
The guitar’s design was the work of Mauricio Benitez, known as “Mr. Bling,” and was inspired by the wide-brimmed “vueltiao” sombrero typical of Colombia’s Atlantic coast, woven with natural fibers and which was declared a “cultural symbol” of the country by Congress in 2004.
Notable among Benitez’s works are the crystal statuettes of Our Lady of Guadalupe and of artists and athletes like Alejandro Fernandez, Don Omar, Venus Williams and Falcao Garcia.
