S. L. Jones American, 1901-1997

S.L. (Shields Landon) Jones was born and raised in West Virginia, one of thirteen children of sharecropper parents who eventually acquired their own farm. As a boy, he spent his free time hunting, carving, and making music. Though he dreamed of becoming a veterinarian—a difficult path given his limited means—he found another way to express his love of animals: carving them. Using a pocketknife, he shaped rabbits, chickens, dogs, horses, and pigs from wood while out hunting. He was also a gifted self-taught musician, winning his first fiddle contest as a pre-teen.

“A person has to have some work to do, so I carve some and play the fiddle,” he later said—a philosophy that guided him when he returned to whittling after retiring from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1967. In his early seventies, Jones began bringing his small animal carvings to county fairs and social gatherings across West Virginia. In 1972, he was discovered by Herbert Waide Hemphill, the influential collector and founder of New York City’s Museum of Folk Art.

More concerned with expression than strict form, Jones created work that defied traditional expectations; each piece carries a distinct personality and character. In his later years, when carving became difficult, he turned to pastel and pen drawings—rendering faces, cats, pigs, and horses in the same expressive style. Jones sustained a long and prolific artistic life, continuing to create into his nineties.