Hello, thanks for visiting my shop. I am David van den Berg, an artist and instrument builder from the northern Netherlands. I love to create, and almost every day I have to make something. I love to draw and paint, and started building guitars made of various objects almost 5 years ago. I am a totally independent and self-taught artist, and every day I try to learn more about what I do. I also started some simple leather-work a while ago. Besides creating instruments and art, I am a musician too. I love making music, and play my guitars every day.

As a kid I was always interested in how things were made. I was breaking everything apart, and tried to put it back together again. I was always drawing and liked to make crossbows and swords from wood.

However, I had some difficult times growing up, I lost the kid in me, and with that my creative energy. One day my best friend confronted me with myself, and I just had to start rethinking my life. I stood still, and began a new way of living and thinking. I felt reborn and free. I found the kid in me again, I fell in love with nature, art and music and saw this interconnectedness in everything. Life is beautiful, extraordinary, and a inscrutably miraculous mystery. I started studying Environmental Science because I wanted to be useful to the world and saw clearly the importance of nature, our environment, where we as humans depend on. Besides my education, I started teaching myself how to play guitar and a sense of rhythm. I started creating again. I was interested in all sounds, especially instruments, and wanted to play and try every instrument I could get my hands on. But I only had this one guitar I bought. Then one day I thought I can also try to make my own instruments.

Making Instruments
Since the first little one string I made, I wanted to create more and learn everything about guitar building and woodworking. I still learn something new every day and it has been a very enriching experience thus far. I love the idea of recycling wood and reclaiming objects to bring them to life. Every guitar can be seen as a sculpture, a painting, a piece of art. And a unique and fully functional instrument! I do my very best with everything I create, and make every instrument as it were for myself. A lot of time, effort, blood, sweat and tears go into making these. There is way more time and effort in these things then I could ever charge for. I have made guitars with 1 to 6 strings. And every instruments has its own unique sound and appearance. At first I had my own name as ‘brand’, then one day I was playing in the country side, and saw a Common Buzzard flying high in the sky, and the name High Bird came to me. Since then I adopted the name High Bird as a brand name for my creations. I love birds, and if I could be an animal, I probably would choose a bird so I could fly, be free and see everything from a wide overview perspective. I try to give all my instruments a bird name that suits them, because they need a name, and to raise awareness for them and nature in general.

My work is inspired by life, music, art and nature, I think it all comes from the same powerful creative energy as the origin our beautiful planet. I want to share my passion, and my creations with the world, and I would be honored if I sell one of my creations. If one of my instruments is being played somewhere in the world and it creates beautiful music, or inspires somebody? That's all I could ever wish for!

Thanks for visiting my shop, if you could recommend this to anyone, feel free to share!