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William Jeffrey Jones Custom

William Jeffrey Jones Guitars evolved purely as the means to express the personal creative concepts and skills of acclaimed commercial sculptor, Jeffrey Jones. A working artist for over 25 years, Jeffrey has also been a guitarist for over 30. His woodworking experience from a very early age actually influenced his decisions to become a professional sculptor, so from there, building guitars was a simple extension of logic, driven by passion, experience, and the lifelong commitment to creative endeavor. Now, his sculpted guitars are the direct product of that passion and experience fueling itself to spawn an ever evolving and exhilarating body of work.

That legacy isn't comprised solely of works of art for art's sake, but rather, useful and inspirational tools with the potential, themselves, to fan the flames of creative expression for musicians who appreciate the value of a uniquely designed and crafted custom instrument, artists who themselves possess the passion and ability to create an extraordinary performance or composition on an instrument cut from the same exquisite cloth. Just as their music emanates from within through the touch of their own masterful hands, so do the distinctive instruments of William Jeffrey Jones acquire life through his.

"Functionality has always held a place of honor in my creative philosophy. Sculpture for sculpture's sake is a valid form of expression, but utilizing sculpture to solve a particular functional issue is, for me, an even more elevated form. My guitars are the ultimate expression of my design and artisanship philosophies, imparting visual concepts and ideas through the practical, musical instrument. My experience and passion compels me to bring the level of work that defined my sculptural career to the luthiery table."

Throughout his career as a commercial sculptor, he produced some of the most recognized and collectible action figures on the market, a good number of which were sculpted during his years as a staff sculptor for McFarlane Toys. His specialty has always been female figures, but the industry also relied upon his realism and clean detail to produce exacting replicas of sports figures and television, movie, and gaming characters, a list of which is quite extensive.

His guitars are elegantly organic and deliciously curvacious. Those curves and soft contours present an instrument so comfortable and familiar that it almost immediately becomes an extension of the player. Some contours are so subtle that the player may not even consciously recognize that they exist, but the experience of playing the instrument will almost certainly be affected.

Many of Jeffrey's instruments are embellished with what can only be described as the sublime. Besides a solid foundation in anatomy and the human form, a deep appreciation and understanding of historic ornamentation provides a range of design concepts and motif at Jeffrey's disposal, limited only by the imagination. He's a self-described "steampunk," or one whose visual styles and preferences lean toward those of the Victorian age of steam. The organic and botanically-inspired ornamentation from earlier periods that adorned what was at that time "high tech," gave the technology a more graceful appearance and softened the severity of the otherwise industrial object.

Impeccable craftsmanship is a given. "A good design is one thing, but a masterly execution is an absolute necessity to reveal and extol the virtues of that design. The artist may have the most beautiful composition in the universe in his or her heart, but unless it's played with the virtuosity it requires, the world will never hear it like it could or should be heard."

On this page are examples of Jones' work. They tend to have model names like: Del Fuego, Orpheus, Arcadia Singlecut, Arcadia Doublecut, DonnaKay, Kronos, Dragonwing, Special Kay, and Nocturne though those names tend to be as fluid as Jones' work.