News| News

Charles Jones is an Renaissance man. He is an author, musician, painter, and poet. He has also created images for numerous publications and written and printed many of his own works. His art has been displayed in galleries throughout the United States, Europe and Latin America. On Thursday, Sept. 28, Jones will give a talk at the Wynne Center for Arts and Culture about his formative Huntsville days.

He has taught printmaking in schools since 1971. He is one of only a few people who still do book binding and press printing by hand. Jones is a Vietnam War Veteran who was awarded the Silver Star. He served as Platoon Leader of Company C of the 1st Battalion of the 7th Division of Marines in the Vietnam War.

Jones created a collection of poems and prose about his experiences, originally written to accompany the “Vietnam Suite,” forty multimedia works on paper presented with a performance piece called “Chopper Blues”. The performance piece became a book that includes drawings and photographs from his time in Vietnam, images from the “Vietnam Suite”, and woodcuts he created for a book he co-wrote with Dinh Viet Luc.

Jones grew up as a child in Dodge, Michigan in the 1940s. At that time, electricity was still a rarity.

He would spend hours rubbing pencil marks on limestone rocks when his family moved into a new home near Harmon Creek. These abstract shapes became his first forms of contemporary art.

Reading and drawing were my main forms of entertainment,” said Jones. “Books were a big deal, and I was fortunate that my family would gift them to me for Christmas.”

His fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Garrett taught him Chinese characters and calligraphy. She is the aunt of local painter David Addickes. All students had access to the Estill Library, where he found the vivid drawings by the author and Marine officer Col. John. W. Thomason, Jr.

“It was a lucky time to be in Huntsville,” said Jones. “Many people that I grew up with went on to amazing things, and the artists I learned from in the college and community were a huge inspiration.”

Murray Smither, a late artist, taught Jones the basics of typesetting and printing. After graduating Huntsville High School, in 1959, he attended Sam Houston State Teachers College.

Jones was taught how to make woodcuts by Gene Eastman in 1961, when the art department at the university was considered one of the best in Texas.

Stanley Lea also had a significant influence on Jones. Lea was an expert at papermaking and the printing process. He established the SHSU printmaking department, and introduced the ink-viscosity method, which is still used today. Jones also took classes with renowned sculpture Charles Pebworth. Jones’s life was forever changed after meeting these pioneering artists. She earned her Master of Arts Degree at New Mexico Highlands University as well as a Master of Fine Arts degree from Universidad de las Americas.

Jones was a professor for Stephen F. Austin State University when he joined the faculty in 1971.

teamed up with Art History Professor Dr. David Lewis to form SFA’s printing program. After 40 years of teaching printmaking, drawing, Mexican Art History and the “Art of the Book”, Jones retired to become the director and master printer for the LaNana Creek Press in the SFA College of Fine Arts. He is now Professor of Art Emeritus.

Jones has worked almost exclusively with hand tools for all his years of creating hand-engraved woodcuts. He only uses a Dremel for finishing touches, and still employs one tool he used in Eastman’s class in college.

He continues to produce custom woodcuts, unique books, and collaborate with many authors. He has created limited edition books with writers and poets like Kim Addonizio and Mark Sanders. David Kulhavy, Marc Guidry and others. Each page of the book is made using the finest papers in the world, and is bound by hand.

Jones and artist Corinne Jones have been married for 37 years. They have three children and 5 grandchildren. They share a studio at home where they work together. The only thing that separates them is a wood-burning stove. Their most recent collaboration is “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”. The original fine arts book, published by Wallace Stevens back in 1923, is now reprinted as a 10×10 trade edition with images illustrated by Corinne. “Dark Pearls” is another treasure they helped bring to life, with Charles creating woodcuts from Corinne’s drawings.

The Wynne Home Series will feature a presentation that includes examples of these hand-bound books. Genevieve Brown is the next speaker, who was formerly the Dean of Education at SHSU. She will speak on October 26.

The Wynne home is located at 1428-11th street. Regular hours are from 10a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more about the artist’s work, visit https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/4951895.Charles_D_Jones.