Visionary artist Freeman Vines passes away at age 82

FREEMAN VINES, LUTHIER AND ARTIST BEHIND HANGING TREE GUITARS, PASSES AWAY AT AGE 82

Hillsborough, NC (March 14, 2025) — Freeman Vines, a mystical luthier who etched the South’s legacy of racial terror into wood, died on March 13, 2025, in Fountain, eastern North Carolina, at the age of 82.

Vines gained widespread recognition through the 2020 release of Hanging Tree Guitars, a collaboration with Music Maker Foundation. The book showcased photographs of Vines’ eerie, sometimes grotesque wooden sculptures, along with conversations revealing his prowess as a metaphysician and wily raconteur. The title refers to the fact that many guitars reimagined by Vines were inspired by the lynching of Oliver Moore in Edgecombe County, NC, in 1930. Some pieces were even crafted from wood drawn from a literal hanging tree where black men had been lynched by white mobs.

Hanging Tree Guitars received accolades from prominent media outlets such as NPR, Rolling Stone, and Smithsonian Magazine, as well as from notable musicians and artists like Lonnie Holley, Taj Mahal, Vernon Reid, and Carrie Mae Weems, the last of whom described it as “profoundly beautiful” and “filled with extraordinary materials.” Following the book’s release, Vines’ works were featured in group exhibitions at the Turner Contemporary in Margate (UK) and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. His solo exhibit Freeman Vines: Hanging Tree Guitars, toured the country from 2020 to 2024 and included installations at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and the North Dakota Museum of Art. In May 2023, The New York Times featured Vines in its Arts & Crafts series, offering an inside look into his studio in Fountain.

Freeman Vines was born September 15, 1942. The eldest son surviving into adulthood among eleven siblings, Vines began working in the fields of eastern Carolina with his mother so his sisters could attend school. At the age of 25 in 1965, he and five others were busted hauling two 500-gallon stills of moonshine in Farmville, North Carolina. Vines, the only black person of the group, was also the only one involved to serve time.

Vines led a multidimensional life, transitioning from intermittent encounters with the law to becoming a luthier, a rhythm guitarist in traveling bands, and an auto body worker. An autodidact and spiritual seeker, while his sisters pursued gospel music as the Glorifying Vines Sisters and operated a Christian ministry, Freeman delved into readings of Edgar Cayce and Madame Blavatsky. In the early 1970s, he was an associate of Gavin and Yvonne Frost, founders of the Church and School of Wicca, during their stint in New Bern, NC.

In later years, as his collaboration with the Music Maker Foundation deepened, Vines grew into an aphorist of some power, offering insights ranging from the gnomic (“a plantation is like a weak magnet”) to the comic (“the college I went to is spelled C-H-A-I-N G-A-N-G”) to the philosophical (on the material which comes from lynching trees: “you can see the turmoil in the wood”). Freeman was also the catalyst for the renewal of Fountain’s small farming community, encouraging Music Maker Foundation to bring musical programming to the area. Music Maker opened recording and photography studios there in spring 2024, right next door to Freeman’s workshop.

Timothy Duffy, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Music Maker Foundation, who  collaborated with Vines for more than eight years and took all of the photographs for the Hanging Tree Guitars book and exhibit, reflected, “Freeman Vines was a gifted conceptual artist whose deep spiritual philosophy had a profound impact on just about everyone he came in contact with. What inspired me most was the escalation in his artistic output after his cancer diagnosis of multiple myeloma two years ago. He was bound and determined to continue searching for the sound with his guitar-making and to see our studios through to their completion, and he did. He leaves a remarkable legacy to his community.”

A short documentary film about his life and work, FREEMAN VINES, will premiere in Spring 2025 and begin a festival run. Vines’ work can be viewed online at hangingtreeguitars.com.

As reported by his sister Alice Vines, Vines’s demise was attributed to complications of multiple myeloma. His funeral will be held at noon on Saturday, March 22 at Hornes Funeral Home in Farmville, NC.

About Music Maker Foundation:

Music Maker Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Hillsborough, NC that tends the roots of American music by meeting the day-to-day needs of the artists who create it, ensuring their voices are heard, and giving all people access to our nation’s hidden musical treasures.