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View Images USA Appalachia

Indian Mill, WV Shields Landon "S. L." Jones 1901-1997 Mixed media

Information: S.L. Jones, was an expert mountain fiddler as well as a carver, and was known for his image portraits. Jones worked for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and by lying about his age worked as a laborer in 1918. By the time he retired in 1967 he was a shop foreman. S.L. started to carve after the death of his first wife. In the early 1970's he began taking some of his small carvings of rabbits, dogs, horses and chickens to county fairs; the many ribbons he won were pinned to a bulletin board in his shed studio. By early 1975 Jones had started to make larger carvings, as well as heads. These were displayed for sale at the gift shop in a nearby State Park, and gradually found their way farther afield to galleries and museums. Jones has been described as a image artist. His figures, whether carved or drawn, male or female are generally smiling. "The heads look like I feel," he once said, "happy or sad --- they aren't of anyone in particular but they come from me". Jones' drawings of heads related to his sculptures. These drawings of faces, frozen in time, and his stiff full figures are especially memorable. Jones' work has been shown in numerous major museum and gallery exhibitions, including the Museum of American Folk Art, the Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center and the Huntington Museum of Art. America Oh Yes

	Reference / Links:
	Grey Carter Objects Of Art: "S.L. Jones" America Oh Yes! Gallery: "S.L. Jones" Black Sheep Gallery: "S.L. Jones" Carl Hammer Gallery Red Kettle Slotin Folk Art At Home Gallery
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Bibliography: His stiff full figures are memorable and are in several renowned folk art collections, including the American Folk Art Museum, the Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, and the National Museum of American Art at The Smithsonian. "O Appalachia: Artists of the Southern Mountain" by Ramona Lampell and Millard Lampell with David Larkin, Tabori & Chang, publisher, New York, 1989. "Museum of American Folk Art Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century American Folk Art and Artists" by Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, New York, 1990. "Contemporary American Folk Art - A Collector's Guide" Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Abbeville Press, 1996. "20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art" by Betty-Carol Sellen, Cynthia J. Johnson, Neal-Schuman Publishers, New York, 1993. "Flying Free: Twentieth-Century Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Ellin and Baron Gordon" by Ellin Gordon, Barbara L. Luck and Tom Patterson, exhibit catalog for The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, 1997. "Let it Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection" by Lynne E. Spriggs, Joanne Cubbs, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, Susan Mitchell Crawley, Michael E. Shapiro and Peter Harholdt, organized by the High Museum of Art, 2001. "American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends with 1,319 Capsule Biographies" by Florence Laffal and Julius Laffal, 2003. "Wos Up Man?" Selections from the Joseph D. and Janet M. Sheen Collection of Self-taught Art" Palmer Museum of Art, 2005. Slotin Folk Art Auction Catalog, Masterpiece Sale, November 4, 2006 "Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum" by Tom Patterson, Watson-Guptill Publications/New York, 2001.

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