Merle Shields Long 

Award winning Fine Arts

Craftsman, Designer

Descended from a long line of Craftsman, engineers and lumbermen, woodworking came naturally to Shields. He has always been fascinated by wood crafting and started woodworking in Junior High School like many young men of his generation. His father, Merle Stuart Long, had grown up a lumberman in the Appalachian mountains working for his father Jack Long during the heyday of the North Carolina Furniture industry. Part of the family land “way back when” was sold off to be part of the right of way to build the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Shields’ father had a powerful intellect and read incessantly. He developed many skills and held at least three US Patents by the time he was 21, then later in life held several more. He owned and managed a number of businesses including lumberyards, and a fence and truss company. But, what Shields remembers most about his dad was his amazing ability to make things.

“My Dad could build just about anything he wanted. He would sharpen his pencil with his pocket knife, sketch out a few things on his yellow legal pad. Then using his folding ruler and his faithful Stanley No. 20 square he would mark some boards and start cutting wood. It always amazed me that he could think of something, just visualize it and build it. Always straight, nearly perfect, and usually with hand tools. One time in junior High school, I needed a project for the science fair and my dad says “Let’s build a tornado maker!” He said he had seen a plan in an old Popular Mechanics magazine once. He just got out his pad and drew it up, sketched it from memory. We pulled out some lumber, he showed me where to make the cuts, and we put it together. I won first place with that thing, it was really cool. Years later, when my son Hunter was in middle school and needed a science project I thought of that story and pulled out my graph paper. I told him “Let’s build a tornado maker!” He was as stunned as I was back then. I sketched it from memory, helped him build it, and he got an A! Later, before Hunter even graduated High School, he earned his certification in AutoCAD (and three other computer drafting and 3-D modeling programs), so I’m sure that’s what he’ll use instead of a note pad or graph paper. My dad passed away when I was only 14, to this day I miss him and wonder about all the things he could have taught me.”

Shields was born in Greenville, SC in 1963 then moved around quite a bit. From South Carolina to Florida, back to South Carolina then on to Chapel Hill, NC for Junior High and High school.

“After graduation I moved back to Florida to start college and moved in with my older brother Dale and his family. Dale was older than me by ten years, when we were growing up I was the annoying little brother who could get away with anything. Dale didn’t have it so easy, dad was a real task master and expected a lot out of him, but when I moved in Dale he treated me great. I’m so grateful he and his wife put up with me. Dale was a master mechanic and always had no nonsense “get it done” attitude. He was a good influence on me when I needed it. We would go fishing and do all kinds of things together that we never did when I was little.

In 1981 I got a job at Disney World to help pay for college and started out at the Magic Kingdom. That was fun enough, but then I was asked to join the opening crew of Epcot as that park was just being built. Let me tell you, that was an education! I not only saw what it took to get a major project completed, but more importantly, I watched some of the best craftsman and artists in the world bring to life to one of Walt Disney’s biggest Dreams.

It was at Epcot during this time I met my wife, Lynn. She was in Entertainment and I was in Operations, she was a dancer and performer and was on stage all the time, she was just so beautiful. She tells me we met and married in 10 months and I don’t doubt her. We were very young and very much in love and are still married 40 plus years later. It’s actually better now than ever, I can’t imagine life without her. It was Lynn’s idea for me to start this business, she has supported me completely. Eventually, I ended up working for Disney for 23 years and had a blast!”

“A wise acquaintance of mine once called me a Renaissance Man. I wasn’t sure what that was (I had to look it up!) It turns out that it means to have knowledge and skills about a wide variety of subjects. It made me laugh but it was pretty accurate and I immediately thought of my dad. Like him, I had spent all my life studying things that interested me, in school and out, I just thought that was what normal people did. I was always reading a lot, 2 or 3 books going at any time was normal (still is), and watching documentaries back before the internet. Now I do a lot of online research but I learned that you have to sort through the junk and clutter, a lot of what’s out there is inaccurate. More recently, people have been coming to me for information, or advice on a number of subjects. My problem is I can ramble on for hours on a subject and all they want is a 3 minute summary! That’s a personality defect I’ve fought to correct my whole life. I haven’t done too well with that, I still over load people. So I officially apologize, here and now, to everyone affected.”

After leaving Disney and owning his own successful auto transport business for 14 years, Shields sold it and then spent a year building the shop he wanted. Now he’s returned to his passion of fine woodworking full time.

“Craftsmanship has been a part of me my whole life, like my dad I guess. I have always enjoyed making much of what my family needed instead of buying it because I always wanted a quality that we usually couldn’t afford or, more importantly, wasn’t available. I usually felt I could do it just a bit better. It took many years of practice and a steady accumulation of tools to start to get the quality I was after. An early lesson I learned was to always take the time to design and engineer meticulously. By drawing my ideas to scale on graph paper until things were as perfect as possible helped eliminate errors and wasteful do overs. It didn’t occur to me that everybody didn’t do things that way.

It’s not just furniture or cabinets, my interest to craft is varied, from my Harley I customized (completely, all the way down to the bare frame) to the 1965 Mustang Restomod that I’m building for my wife. I’ve crafted leather for traditional archery equipment and made custom wooden arrows for my longbows. I developed my own camouflage because I wanted something better, and hand painted it on Army BDU’s for my brother Dale and me! More recently while finishing up the additions to our house Lynn asked for (out of the blue…) a “coffee bar” next to the kitchen. And I wanted a classy Bamboo bar for entertaining on our new back porch. Both turned out magnificent! All my life, people have always told me they really love my craftsmanship, so now I have turned my attention to it full time. Now I’m able to make whatever motivates me, currently it’s these beautiful lamps.”

Awards:

Second Place Overall, Windermere Fine Arts Show 2020

(there was no wood working category)

Award of Excellence, Maitland Fine Art Show 2022

(First Place, Sculpture and Wood category)