I've always made things—from train sets, tree houses, and trebuchets to websites, screenplays and special effects. I find myself blessed with an aptitude for assembling complex wholes from lots of little parts.
In 2007, fresh out of highschool, I spent 3 months in the medieval town of Totnes in southwest England, attending the Totnes School of Guitarmaking. Under the tutelage of master luthier Phil Messer and using almost entirely hand tools, I turned some rough-sawn pieces of yellow cedar, mahogany, and ebony into a rather unorthodox nylon string guitar.
It has the outline and bracing system of a traditional Torres classical but with a 14th-fret neck join and extremely deep florentine cutaway. I still play this guitar nearly every day.
I went on to study film production at the Savannah College of Art and Design and then moved to the San Francisco bay area where I found work as a video editor for Electronic Arts. I’ve been with EA since 2013, creating trailers for some of the most iconic video game franchises.
Over the years I’ve continued acquiring and making tools, growing my workshop, and dusting off those lutherie skills through repairs and upgrades to some of my own instruments.
In 2022 I built a telecaster-style electric guitar from a big block of old-growth redwood.
Then in 2023, inspired by the playing of dutch bouzoukist Tijn Berends, I used an offcut from that same block of redwood for the soundboard of an Irish bouzouki—an instrument in the mandolin family sometimes also called a cittern or octave mandolin.
To my delight, that first bouzouki turned out to have phenomenal resonance, sustain, and projection. It garnered such positive feedback from everyone who saw/heard it that I set out to make a batch of four more to sell.
In early 2025 that first batch of bouzoukis was finished and quickly found buyers in the bay area Irish music scene.
I have since started on a batch of mandolins, steel string acoustic guitars, and a multi-scale headless electric.
If you are interested in commissioning a custom instrument, please send me a message. It would be my pleasure to work with you to create a one-of-a-kind instrument that meets all your musical needs.
