Mike Jewell doesn’t waste a minute. If he did, there’d be no time in his jam-packed life for the wood art he so enjoys. His wife, Jennifer, supports this interest. She sees it as a stress reliever to help him manage his demanding schedule.
Mostly a “scroller,” Jewell hand cuts with a scroll saw (a small electric saw with a blade that looks like a piece of fine wire) rather than using a laser. Scrollers adhere a pattern to the top of a piece of wood. They then move the wood around the stationary blade, cutting according to the pattern, to create intricate designs.
When someone asks him to, Jewell occasionally makes signs and small pieces of furniture, or uses a wood lathe to fashion relatively simple pens, but his passion lies in “fretwork.” Defined as “designs made by cutting pieces out of a thin piece of wood or metal,” fretwork can range from uncomplicated patterns, such as the Greek key repeated over and over, to elaborate compositions with many overlapping layers. With the latter, the result resembles different pieces of fine lace laying one atop the other.
Jewell’s interest in wood art began in 2004 when he noticed some scroll saw pieces. “When something catches my interest, I start wondering if I can figure out how to do it.” His father-in-law gave him a saw for his birthday, and he began cutting small silhouettes of objects and animals before attempting more intricate patterns.
For the next 11 years, he gave away everything he made to friends and family. Finally, in 2015, Jewell began advertising pieces on Etsy and Facebook under the name MRJ Wood Art. But he shut down the Etsy site when too many orders came in for pieces he didn’t enjoy making. “I started feeling like I was producing the same thing over and over again, and didn’t like that. This was supposed to be a creative hobby, not a production line.”
So Jewell returned to focusing primarily on one-of-a-kind commissions featuring fretwork. These creations included a clock that displayed ghoulish characters from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Another piece, for a recent University of Pittsburgh grad, showed iconic campus buildings lit from behind, with the grad’s name along the bottom, her major down the side, and even a Bluetooth hookup.
When Joe Battista visited Skills of Central PA as a guest speaker, Jewell was commissioned to make him a gift. He created a personalized clock featuring fretwork vignettes of many of the highlights from Battista’s career, including his time as an ice hockey coach and later as a sports executive.
Additional examples of MRJ Wood Art can be found on Facebook, or at Jewell’s booth in the Titan Energy Park in Bellefonte. He’s there Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Also displayed at the booth are wood pieces fashioned by Skills artisans as part of their job training.
But as much as Jewell loves turning wood into art, he values his other work even more. As a full-time vocational training (VT) service manager for Skills of Central PA, Jewell assists those living with behavioral health, intellectual, or developmental disabilities. “Among other things, our VT team helps people develop the job skills needed in the workforce. If a job is too difficult, we modify the steps for a successful outcome. Various Centre County companies then provide work that enables those we serve to earn a paycheck.”
As of last November, he assumed an additional responsibility, that of greenhouse manager for the ACRES (Adults Creating Residential & Employment Solutions) Project. In addition to people with autism, the ACRES team includes educators, parents, and others from the local community with the same goal—helping adults with autism build purposeful, self-sufficient lives.
Located on Bernal Road, the ACRES greenhouse, of which Jewell is deservedly proud, allows him to use his aquaculture background. He specialized in aquaculture while earning a bachelor’s degree in marine fisheries from Texas A&M and worked in that field for two years. (Texas A&M is also where he met Jennifer, a Bellefonte native.) Revenues from the lettuces and microgreens grown at the greenhouse and currently sold at Titan Energy Park—and through additional venues in the near future—support the ACRES Project.
Although it’s not easy, Jewell also makes time for Jennifer and their two sons, Archer, 19, currently serving in the Army, and Nathan, 16, a student at Bellefonte High School. Nathan, who has Down syndrome, is the reason Jewell earned a master’s in special education from Edinboro University. This degree has proven useful in his work at Skills as well.
Attending the First Baptist Church in Bellefonte is indicative of yet another vitally important part of Jewell’s life. He says, “If it wasn’t for God, I don’t think I’d have the energy to be involved in everything I do.”
As an artist, Jewell’s most time-consuming wood art project so far displays twelve fanciful fretwork designs, one for each day in the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” When the song plays, the correct day lights up to match the lyrics. The finished “Twelve Days of Christmas” measures about 17 by 21 inches, with a depth of six inches to contain the wiring.
Jewell began this more-than-five-years-in-the-making endeavor by enlisting the help of Ben Hargrove. A 15-year-old member of the Bellefonte High School robotics team at the time, Hargrove provided the schematics plan.
“Electronics aren’t my strong suit,” says Jewell. “I really had to push myself to learn how to do that, but going beyond what I already know is the fun part.
“The best thing about that particular piece,” he continues, “happened shortly after I put it on our wall. Nathan noticed the button on the bottom and pushed it. He listened to the song and watched the days light up over and over again. Then he turned to me with a big smile, pushed the button a few more times, and walked off. And I thought ‘That’s it right there. Made him happy.’”
Calling Jewell’s life multi-faceted is an understatement. Somehow, though, he makes it all come together as a cohesive whole. T&G
Diane Johnston Leos is a State College freelance writer. This story appears in the April 2022 issue of Town&Gown.
