Guitarmaker has found artistic niche

Jayson Bowerman, a frequent fixture in the Sisters arts community, struck out on his own last year with a new line of guitars highly sought after for their resonant tone and natural beauty.

After a dynamic 15-year run at Breedlove Guitars as head of research and development for their American guitar line, the 80-hour work weeks were starting to grind his spirit and creativity down. He became a free agent last April, founding Bowerman Guitars, ramping up production and bestowing each exotic-wood mandolin, guitar and ukulele with his own signature style.

Out in his elf-sized workshop, past a colorful collage of surfboards, kayaks and canoes, Bowerman plies his trade with a masterful hand.

"We're getting pretty close on this one," he said, cradling a tenor guitar whose Oregon myrtlewood shone with a golden iridescence. "This is for Bend musician Julie Southwell, a violinist who plays with Sola Via and many other local projects."

Bowerman gives the wood shell a blast from an air hose then returns to the bench to polish the grain.

"I just love that reflectivity. I wanted to combine the elements of Oregon tone woods with East Indian rosewood appointments because of Julie's interest in Indian culture and music. The custom guitar design process is a collaborative enterprise between the maker and the player."

Bowerman has mentored many students in the successful guitar-building class conducted through the Sisters Folk Festival at Sisters High School, including graduate Scott Salgado, now part of Breedlove's manufacturing team.

"This guitar program in Sisters, more than anything I've done, has given me great satisfaction and fulfilled my dream of becoming a competent shop teacher," he said.

Bowerman's creation of innovative glass lap guitars began as an art project for the 2010 Sisters Folk Festival Americana Project's "My Own Two Hands" auction. His generously donated Sitka spruce mandolin and red-tailed hawk glass guitar both earned stellar bids for the annual fundraising event.

"Artist Susie Zeitner was the real inspiration for these glass guitars," Bowerman said. "We teamed up for the initial art piece then attached a neck and a bridge, then installed the tuners and pickups for last year's fully functional hawk guitar. We were all blown away by how unique it was and the resonance was insane. With the weight involved, a lap guitar seemed the most appropriate style."

Each cast glass guitar goes through five separate firings at a temperature of 1,550 degrees for a total kiln time of over 70 hours. Powdered glass of different colors is sprinkled through all eight layers to create depth for the bird's impression and the luster of the sky.

It's a unique process in the art glass world called "painting with light" and involves building imagery through the glass so, when fired, it renders the entire image with clear saturation throughout the piece. Retail price of these eye-catching guitars is $8,000 each.

"We're calling the series 'Soaring Sound,' and it's limited to a run of 10, themed with the images of a bird of prey," said Bowerman. "This new one is a bald eagle we call 'Free Bird.'"

The guitar was in Nashville last week with a session musician tracking with Willie Nelson.

"It's really a distraction every time he brings it into the studio," Bowerman said. "Nobody's ever seen one cast in glass. It has the sound of classic country music of the 1950s."

Besides creating the old-fashioned tenor guitars, the Hawaiian lap steel and glass lap guitars and other custom six-strings for musicians of all persuasions, Bowerman is playing more of his own music.

"One of the nice things about being independent is that I've gotten back to playing my own music," he said. "Our band is called The Pitchfork Revolution. We play mostly bluegrass and some improv jazz. Our banjo player, John Lucey, came up with the name from this old picture of angry peasants storming the Bastille in France with farm tools. Something about the parallel between personal freedom and the rebellious creativity inside all us musicians. They had their instruments, and we have ours." Visit Bowerman's Web site at http://bowermanguitars.com or call 541-460-2424 for more information.