I grew up in the piedmont region of Virginia, in Chesterfield county. My mother was a violinist and began my brothers and I on the instrument when I was seven. I’ve played violin and fiddle music since then and picked up the mandolin as an alternative to the orchestra in high school.

I attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA and in 1996 I received a BA in Anthropology with a Music minor. During this time I also received several grants for research in ethnomusicology entitled: “Bluegrass Music and the Festival Context”, and “Learning in Bluegrass Music: Modified Oral Tradition”. Playing music always accompanied my studies and I also participated for several years in the William and Mary Middle Eastern Ensemble under Dr. Anne Rasmussen. Before my last semester in school, I decided to continue my education in music as a mandolin builder, and sought an apprenticeship with a master luthier.

In the fall of 1996 I moved out to western Idaho to work with A. Lawrence Smart. Lawrence’s instruments are known for great sound and impeccable workmanship, and can be found on many stages and studios. Currently, Mike Marshall, John Reischman and Chris Thile all play a Smart mandola. I continued working with Lawrence until 2000 when I moved to Vermont to form the Cleary Bros. Band with my younger brother, John. My experience as a professional musician serves as a foundation for my lutherie work, but it is applied in concert with other skills: design, woodworking, drawing, painting, chemistry and patience. I like to think of instrument making as alchemy of sorts--turning mute wood into music.

In 2001 I began working with John Paul Moroz, a 1982 graduate of the Violinmaking School of America in Salt Lake City, and a respected violinmaker. Five years of violin work opened my eyes to traditional knowledge--tools and techniques which have been used by violinmakers for centuries. It is with this knowledge and aesthetic, this philosophy of instrument making, that I approach all of my building. This influence is most obviously borne out in my mandolin design, which updates the mandolin of the early 1920s with cutting edge 17th and 18th century designs and workbench techniques.

In 2005 my work was recognized by the Vermont Council on the Arts in the form of a Creation Project Grant to support the development of this style of mandolin. The instrument created under the funding of this grant was presented in a concert by the Jazz Mandolin Project’s Jamie Masefield in August, 2005. Please visit the NOTES section to see documentation of that project, and what I'm currently working on.

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