Eric Jensen
Clark Science Center

Handmade Guitar

Eric Jensen is the Director of the Center for Design & Fabrication in Smith’s Clark Science Center.  He and his wife live in the hilltowns west of Smith, which suits him well as he loves nature and can never get enough of being outside.  Eric and his wife have three adult children and two small grandchildren who, of course, are their world.

Besides the outdoors and his family, Eric’s passion is making stuff. His day job at the Science Center requires design and fabrication work that uses the analytical side of his brain, so when he’s at home, he prefers to work with organic, simple tools and techniques that let the eye be the guide.

One of his favorite outlets for this type of work is the creation of handcrafted musical instruments.  He has been working on this practice since he built his first instrument as a teenager.

Eric’s submission to the Staff Arts Virtual Showcase is a hand-built acoustic steel string guitar. It is a 12 fret parlor guitar, a model common in the 1930’s but uncommon today. Eric builds his guitars from a couple drawings and a pile of wood. Besides the craft part of making a guitar, the most critical and interesting part to Eric is voicing the instrument. Voicing means making fine adjustments during the construction that allow the instrument to sing. Voicing cannot be taught but must be learned by repetition and practice. The voice is the art of the guitar—it’s beauty—and Eric is endlessly attracted to that beauty.