Background
A guitar player since the age of 12, I majored in music at Richmond College in NYC, studying performance and composition while studying the classical guitar privately with Julio Prol. After college I briefly taught music and tried performing. Plagued with performance anxiety I opted to change direction and became an apprentice cabinetmaker working in a well known cabinet shop in New York City training with old world European craftsman.
Returning to college once again, I set out on a career as an electrical engineer. Recruited off campus by AT&T Bell Labs, I was sent immediately to graduate school to earn a masters degree at Polytechnic University. Dissatisfied with corporate life after 10 years as a hardware design engineer at Bell Labs I accepted a company buyout, and returned to woodworking starting a small business designing and building furniture. Having always been a huge fan, I applied, and was accepted in the fine woodworking program at the College of the Redwoods. Inspired by Jim's work and writings, I studied with him for two years at the fine woodworking program there. During this time my association with the craft became deeper, as I became particularly sensitive to the relationship between the craftsman and the material.
In between semesters and in need of a new guitar, I took a guitar making class with Charles Fox in Healdsburg, California and made my first guitar shortly thereafter. Straight away, I was commissioned to build a guitar for a local performer. I have been building guitars full time since then and in 1996 established J.S. Bogdanovich Guitars on the North Coast of California. It has also been my good fortune to have met some very generous luthiers along the way willing to share some of their knowledge with me. Jeffery Elliott, John Gilbert and Greg Byers have all in some way contributed to both my knowledge and enjoyment of guitar building. In the spring of 2004 I relocated to Asheville, North Carolina setting up shop there in my home.
The transition from guitarist and woodworker to luthier has been a graceful one. My years of playing have given me an understanding of the demands a performer makes on an instrument. My years as a craftsman have given me a wealth of knowledge and experience in working with wood which is essential for making a fine instrument.
After making my first guitar, my life had changed. I had come full circle and it became clear that my years of performing and studying the classical guitar had converged with my skills as a furniture designer , woodworker and electrical engineer.
