If there's one word to describe Phil Jones, it's passionate.
He's passionate about supporting his family and friends, his hometown of Jefferson City and growth of the arts.
As an art teacher at Calvary Lutheran High School, he works to pass along his love of art to students.
"I graduated from Jefferson City High School in 1974," Jones said. "In my junior year in 1973, I did a bust of me in high school."
That bust is displayed in Jones' home along with busts of himself and other family members at various times in their lives.
"I process things in a three-dimensional way," Jones said. "I paint as well as sculpt. People ask me how I do what I do, and I tell them I don't know. My hands just follow my eyes. That's all I really know how to say: I can see something, I can look at a picture, and my hands just follow the lines."
Through the years, Jones has done sculptures and other artwork that can be found in multiple locations in Jefferson City, including Lincoln University. He has also done projects displayed and owned by nationally known artists such as musicians James Taylor and Nancy Wilson. He's also done sculptures of the Beatles and several heroes from Marvel Comics.
"The hardest part of doing every one of these sculptures is figuring out when it is finished," Jones said. "Generally they take me about 10 days to complete. For some reason, my hands just follow my eyes and I work pretty quickly. I really don't understand why. When God gives you a talent, he doesn't explain to you why he gave it to you or why it works, he just expects you to use it."
Jones started teaching at Calvary Lutheran this school year and said he just wants to "light kids on fire for the arts."
"My high school art teacher, Pat Jones, changed my world," Jones said. "Oh, that lady just lit my brain up with all the things we did."
One thing Jones stresses to his students is that the arts have to support one another.
"My kids designed the set for the dramatics department play," Jones said. "We spent three Saturdays painting the flats, and we had a ball. It was the first time at the school that the arts had worked together."
Due to the COVID-19 emergency, Calvary has ended its school year with students learning remotely. That's been hard on Jones.
"That's been the worst thing because I miss my kids," Jones said. "I just love them. We're doing Google Classroom, but all I can do is assign them to do work in a sketch book. I don't get to work with them and teach them new techniques.
"The one thing I always tell them is all you really have to bring with you is the creativity. Decide what you want, tell me what's in your mind, start putting it on paper, and I will teach the medium and how to use it. I have a ball with these kids. I can't believe I get paid to do it," he said.
Jones' students are doing work with watercolors, acrylic painting and linoleum block prints, and they were working on sculpting small figures with clay that was not as good as they thought - so they used paper-mache over the figures.
"From that they learned that everything in art doesn't always work the way you plan," Jones said. "Half of the creativity is figuring out a way to take what you've got and make it beautiful."
When people ask Jones how much it would cost to do art work, Jones typically says, "I don't have a price. What's your budget? Everybody ought to be able to have art. I would rather write my name into the history of Jefferson City than have money or riches."