True Faith, True Light : The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley / Kelly Mulhollan ; photographs by Kirk Lanier ; additional photographs by Flip Putthoff and Russell Cothren.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mulhollan, Kelly, author.

Contributor:

Cothren, Russell, photographer.

Putthoff, Flip, photographer.

Lanier, Kirk, photographer.

Series:

Arkansas character.

Arkansas character

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stringed instrument makers--Arkansas--Hogscald Hollow--Biography.

Stringed instrument makers.

Stilley, Ed.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (216 p.)

Place of Publication:

Fayetteville, [Arkansas] : The University of Arkansas Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1979, Ed Stilley was leading a simple life as a farmer and singer of religious hymns in Hogscald Hollow, a tiny Ozark community south of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Life was filled with hard work and making do for Ed, his wife Eliza, and their five children, who lived in many ways as if the second half of the twentieth century had never happened. But one day Ed's life was permanently altered. While plowing his field, he became convinced he was having a heart attack. Ed stopped his work and lay down on the ground. Staring at the sky, he saw himself as a large tortoise struggling to swim across a river. On his back were five small tortoises--his children--clinging to him for survival. And then, as he lay there in the freshly plowed dirt, Ed received a vision from God, telling him that he would be restored to health if he would agree to do one thing: make musical instruments and give them to children. And so he did. Beginning with a few simple hand tools, Ed worked tirelessly for twenty-five years to create over two hundred instruments, each a crazy quilt of heavy, rough-sawn wood scraps joined with found objects. A rusty door hinge, a steak bone, a stack of dimes, springs, saw blades, pot lids, metal pipes, glass bottles, aerosol cans--Ed used anything he could to build a working guitar, fiddle, or dulcimer. On each instrument Ed inscribed "True Faith, True Light, Have Faith in God." True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley documents Ed Stilley's life and work, giving us a glimpse into a singular life of austere devotion.

Contents:

Introduction : artist to artist to artist

1. Ed Stilley

2. Ed Stilley at Hogscald Holler

3. Tools of the trade

4. Ed Stilley's process

5. The magnificent "butterfly" guitar

6. The evolution of Ed's process

7. Ed Stilley's early creations

8. Form

9. Ed Stilley's middle-period instruments

10. The innards

11. Ed Stilley's middle-period instruments, continued

12. Intonation

13. Ed Stilley's late-period instruments

14. But do they sound good?

15. Ed Stilley's late-period instruments, continued

16. Unfinished work

17. The final word

18. Our journey with the Stilleys.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-61075-570-7

OCLC:

920519600