Ed Stilley, a definitive frontiersman farmer from Hogscald Hollow, Ark., is on a mission from God.

A devout Christian who only reads the Bible, Stilley lived off of the crops he grew on his land. He and his wife, Eliza, raised their five children (now grown) in a home he built himself. They lived without the modern conveniences of the 20th century, excluding electricity.

In 1979, when he was about 50 years old, Stilley felt something like a heart attack while plowing his farm. With no one nearby to help, he laid down. Staring up at the sky, a vivid vision came to him. He saw himself as a large tortoise struggling to swim across a river, and on his back were five small tortoises. That’s when God came to him, telling him that he would be restored to health if he would agree to do one thing: make musical instruments and give them to children. He recovered.

Stilley didn’t have prior training, and he didn’t know anything about being a luthier — a string instrument craftsman — but it didn’t matter. He would devote his life’s work to figuring it out and doing it on his own. You don’t say “no” to the big guy.

In his workshop, he chopped, boiled, bolted and nailed wood to bend into whatever he could get to work to resemble a playable string instrument. Many instruments he built were jagged, rough and asymmetrical, almost Frankenstein-esque in composition. Their insides contained things like Gillette shaving cream cans, saw blades, pot lids, door springs, tubes and bones — whatever he could find to create a tone, or rather “to better speak the voice of the lord.” Once he got his hands on a router, every instrument he made after had his free-handed inscription “True Faith, True Light, Have Faith In God.”

“The most important thing to Ed Stilley is for people to read those words,” said Kelly Mulhollan, one half of folk duo Still on the Hill and longtime friend of Stilley. “He sees that as the crux of what he’s learned from the bible. He thinks those words speak very loudly and from his perspective the only thing he’s been about is getting those words in front of people’s eyes. He doesn’t care about recognition.”

Throughout the course of 20 years, Stilley went on to make 200 one-of-a-kind instruments and gave them away to children in the area. Eventually gout in his hands inhibited him from making more in the mid 2000s. Otherwise, he would still be making them.

Mulhollan recently published a book about the life and work of Ed Stilley. The book, “True Faith, True Light: the Devotional Art of Ed Stilley,” printed by the UofA Press, features hundreds of photographs by Kirk Lanier, and an introduction by Robert Cochran, the chairman of the Center for Arkansas Regional Studies and UA professor. The book is also the first in the Imprint series from the David Pryor Center’s Center for Arkansas Regional Studies.

“I’ve been here 40 years,” Cochran said. “I’ve never seen anything remotely like Ed Stilley.”

The book features the isolated artist’s story parallel to a chronological photo collection of his instruments from early on to the more sophisticated creations of his later work. Many of the instruments pictured in the book feature X-ray photos to show their bizarre inner-workings of the myriad “inventions” Stilley implemented to create tone, such as a pot lid to create a type of reverb echo without even knowing what reverb was.

Similar to how the instruments were a labor of love to Stilley, Mulhollan took on putting the book together out of his desire to celebrate the art of one of Arkansas’ best kept secrets. The undertaking took about 10 years to track down the instruments and the people who received them as children. Some were sold to flea markets, and one in particular was found in a dumpster.

“Some people just put them in their barns because they’re challenging to play,” said Donna Mulhollan, Kelly’s wife. “Now because of our book and our interest for years, people that own them are starting to realize they have something special, that the crudeness is part of the story. They are folk art.”

The Mulhollans first discovered Stilley in 1995 when Donna saw one of Stilley’s guitars at a friend’s house and invited Kelly to see it. A passionate wood worker and fan of folk art, Kelly knew he had to meet the man behind the impossibly unique guitar.

Upon meeting, the Mulhollans and Stilley formed a friendship that is still going strong today. From the start, Stilley treated them like extended family and allowed Kelly to borrow his guitars for weeks at a time. Eventually Stilley gave Donna a fiddle and Kelly his large “butterfly” guitar. The instruments have been a part of every Still on The Hill performance since for their Ed Stilley tribute song, “The Other Side.”

“He was welcoming from the start,” Kelly said.”You’d think that me being a long-haired guy, you’d think that might put off somebody of that traditional nature. Not at all. He embraced us from the start. He was as kind as could be.”

Stilley’s first public exposure to the world came in 1997, when Kelly had Flip Putthoff, a photojournalist for the Rogers Morning News, do a story on Ed. Putthoff was able to capture Stilley in his prime of making his instruments. That very article can be found framed on the wall of the Stilley home today.

In 2013, the book had been completed but was rejected for publication.

That year the Mulhollans worked to curate a exhibition of Stilley’s life work in a gallery at the Walton Arts Center for the Fayetteville Roots Fest. His guitars were arranged and displayed in chronological order along the wall for all to see. Even Stilley, who was confined to a wheelchair, was able to be present. He spent the majority of his time singing hymns and passing out cassette recordings of his preachings, though.

“I walked in cold into Ed Stilley’s exhibit at the Walton Arts Center,” Cochran said. “I didn’t know Kelly. I saw them not as musical instruments, but as mini statues. Even though it was a first impression, I found them endurable, as pieces of artwork.”

After meeting Kelly for the first time at the exhibit, Cochran was able to use his role as chairman of the Center for Arkansas Regional Studies to assist in getting the book published by the UA Press and introduce it to the academic world.

“The biggest reward was getting to hand Ed the book while he’s still alive,” Kelly said. “That was beautiful to see him embrace the book and approve of what we’ve done.”

Still On The Hill Ed Stilley Showcase Performance

If you missed out on the Walton Arts Center gallery exhibit, there will be three opportunities to see Kelly and Donna Mulhollan perform using only Stilley’s instruments as well as a presentation of his life’s work along with the book.

The first book unveiling and performance will be Thursday, Dec. 3, at 6 p.m. at the Fayetteville Public Library. The next will be Saturday, Dec. 5, at 2 p.m. at the Shiloh Museum in Springdale (118 W. Johnson Ave.) The following week there will be a show at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Eureka Springs (17 Elk St.) Sunday, Dec. 13, at 3 p.m. All shows are free and family friendly.

Mike Shirkey of Picking Post Productions will be the host for the evening. The library show will serve the annual December Still on the Hill winter concert.