James Crisp Sculptor

Contemporary Wood Sculpture

Handmade Electric Guitars

2011-2026 and counting…

Commissions and Sales Worldwide,

Contact

Email. james@jamescrispsculptor.com

Email. james@halflightguitars.com

Phone. +44 (0) 7599 873 199

Workshop address

Unit F, Building 7, West Raynham Business Park, Norfolk, England, NR21 7PL

Before developing my unique woodcarving style in 2011, I worked mainly in high-end, bespoke cabinetmaking and construction. Since 2013 I have turned full time to wood carving and my sculptural, yet performance focused, electric guitars.

I studied Art up to the age of eighteen in Cambridge, England, and this had always been my real focus and intention for the future. My tutor suggested Kings College London, where he had connections, he and others in the department loved my paintings but disliked my mysticism and attitude. I left and worked in construction. Over the years I abandoned quite a few good and stable opportunities in favour of work in a new field though, deliberately, mostly because I knew my desire to produce world class guitars directly as an individual, rather than as a company or designer, would require much more than woodworking skills, and I have diverse interests.

But always as a hands on maker.

This is what my work is about, although the precision and detail of form I achieve has often led people to ask if its computer guided machine carving- it is not, and for me there is no computer aided design either. I work with powered tools often, and sometimes my tools are guided by geometry, like drawing with ruler, curves or compasses, but traditional handwork techniques are critical.

When I started seriously carving in a personal, artistic way in 2011, programming a machine to do this work would have been impossibly expensive, outside mass production. That's not the case now.

Also when I started doing geometrically inspired relief carvings to hang on walls, this was pretty unknown, now the style and form in a general sense is popular on mass market, international selling sites- simplified and/or machine made for low cost. Abstract carved relief surfaces have also arguably become the defining high end furniture and interiors style of our period (I have works on three recently constructed mega yachts that are largely interior decorated in this style).

I do love computers and much that they have brought us- I think this new situation is calling for us to rediscover our strengths and value as living, corporeal beings, and that the same can apply to our objects, and our art. Handwork isn't about roughness or mistakes though. My guitars, for example, use very few powered tool processes, and only in the early stages- handwork can be more precise in practice, and I believe it’s inherently valuable.

Every picture you see on this site is an image of a real object, I don't use technology to create images of faux realistic items that have never existed, in impressive fake environments, as possibilities for commission. I do sketch and draw though, sometimes even with computers. They just don't provide the design when I do.

I work from the beautiful countryside of eastern England, in converted buildings on a former military airbase. It’s actually got some brutalist architectural jems, plus tons of biodiversity, in the areas that are decades untouched by ‘management’. My timber comes from English forests and estates, some right on my doorstep.

Please use the email or phone above to get in touch- I work to commission (sometimes very open to create new forms and sometimes more in my recognisable style, using my unique, personally developed techniques), and have speculative pieces for sale (anything not listed as ‘sold’ or ‘to commission’ in the notes for each image on this site).

Works and commissions are available for delivery worldwide. In fact, most of my work has been delivered internationally to this point, see the notes for the images on this site for examples, or this link for an example of my work for Artelier art consultants, who have so far been my single biggest client.

https://www.artelier.com/post/artelier-curation-rosewood-miyakojima-japan

Scales have been from handheld to 2.5 metres high, so far. The largest panel set to date has been 12, each 1 x 1.2m, for example. Larger scale or more numerous item projects than this are certainly welcomed, as are requests for smaller, individual pieces.

All images and text on this site are copyright James Patrick Crisp 2026

This bust was a bit of a departure for me, I was aked to do one on commission. More are coming. It was actually inspired by watching a close friend slowly die of a painful spinal condition. Rest in Peace Ali.

Below is the third piece I made in my own style, way back in 2011. It’s roughly 9 x 16 inches. The second is at the beginning of the ‘selected sculpture pieces’ section, also from 2011. The first piece has not been seen online.