Business Spotlight: Silver Wings

Owner: Jimmy and Cheryl Jones

Founded: 1996

Address: WND

Phone: (417) 887-3534

Fax: (417) 887-3534

Web site: www.swsculpture.com

E-mail: cjones246@sbcglobal.net

Product: Metal sculptures for the garden and home

Employees: 2

An inherited welding rig, inspiration and a few yard birds made out of shovels are how it all began.

Jimmy and Cheryl Jones started Silver Wings, their full-time metal lawn-sculpture business, 11 years ago, and it’s taken them for a wild ride.

At the start, Jimmy Jones was coming off an 18-year career with Reckitt Benckiser, and Cheryl Jones was retiring from teaching at Kickapoo High School.

“He liked messing with machinery, and he’s pretty mechanical,” Cheryl Jones says of her husband.

Silver Wings really took off in 1993, when Jimmy Jones drifted away from yard birds and toward jewelry.

“We had always been rock hounds, and he decided to make some jewelry,” Cheryl Jones recalls. “He made some real pretty silver jewelry. We cut stones and went rock-hounding out West. We kind of progressed to making yard jewelry.”

The Joneses’ sculptures now are much more detailed than crude tool-shed critters. They catch the wind, they move, they catch the light, and they catch a moment in time for their subjects.

One of their signature pieces is a lotus blossom with a little dragonfly hovering above. Pieces range in price from $75 into the thousands.

“We don’t make many of the very inexpensive pieces anymore,” Cheryl Jones notes.

Business at market

While quietly working out of a home studio – the Joneses wouldn’t disclose an address or revenues – the couple have capitalized on markets and festivals, even from Silver Wings’ start at the Farmer’s Market.

“We started with the Farmer’s Market (and) got a pretty good following from that,” Cheryl Jones recalls. “We kind of expanded out to some craft shows every now and then and started doing more of the fine art and fine craft shows.”

Family friend Shirley Maddy remembers they made a big splash in the Springfield Artsfest on Walnut Street in the mid-1990s.

“When they did that first (Artsfest), they were so popular,” Maddy recalls. “The sculptures would just spin in the wind. They were so pretty. They have so many pieces and ideas.”

Because they don’t sell through stores, the Joneses’ have developed a customer base via word of mouth and shows across the Midwest.

The couple loves to grab their dogs and hit the road. Cheryl Jones says they attend between 18 and 22 shows a year, traveling up to 500 miles from Springfield.

Best of Missouri

The Joneses will be in St. Louis for the Best of Missouri Market on Oct. 6–7 at Missouri Botanical Garden.

“(That’s) our favorite show,” Jones says. “I’ve told the people who organize that show that the people in Springfield need to know more about it. It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to take a short drive that time of year and see hundreds of Missouri-made products.”

Nora Stern, co-chair of the Best of Missouri Market, said Silver Wings is just the sort of vendor they like.

“(Jimmy Jones) comes in with new things each year and new ideas,” Stern says. “That’s important to us and one of the reasons we keep asking him back. … We cut 25 percent of our vendors each year to keep it new. You aren’t going to fight those crowds and the parking if you think you are going to see the same thing year after year.”

The show started 16 years ago and features everything from food and plants to art.

“It’s a real cross section of everything,” Stern says. “Yard art, which is what Silver Wings sells, is very popular. He sells out every year or comes very near to it.”

Upcoming Show

Silver Wings is among the 130 Missouri food producers and artisans on display Oct. 6–7 during the 16th annual Best of Missouri Market at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

Other southwest Missouri companies scheduled to be on hand are Lampe-based Persimmon Hill Berry Farm, which makes jams and sauces, and Springfield-based Meandering Gourd, which makes lamps and bowls.

Market hours are 9 a.m.–5 p.m., and admission is $10.[[In-content Ad]]