art, music, and mark.

Mark Megaro is a visual artist, a teacher of art, and a guitar player. An organic non-traditionalist dedicated to innovation and individuality. His goal is to take the instrument ever further while staying true to the analog soul and world that the guitar represents as it translates the players motions across the strings into audible sound. High Water Guitars is dedicated to combining the feel of hand made craft with the accuracy of technological break throughs to make truly artistic custom instruments that play like no other and have a soul of their own.

A little back story:

From an early age Mark had strong opinions and beliefs about what made a great guitar. Spoiled by the happenstance of an inheriting an original owner vintage 1963 Gibson Tal Farlow at 12 years old as his learner guitar Mark never took to the low end import guitars common for a new player at the end of the 20th century. While no one at the time realized the value of the instrument Mark was learning on it imprinted a taste for fine guitars on the young players soul. Mark very quickly could tell the differences that made a guitar special and what it meant to bond with an instrument. As the years went by Mark searched for guitars that had that special feel and that had individual identity and personality. Buying, trading, modifying all types of guitars, most standard model guitars were just not up to the standards, feel, tone, and vibe Mark was looking for. Simultaneously, Mark was training and working as an artist and art teacher. His personal art work was becoming more and more sculptural as he found his voice off the paper page that had called him from a young age. After graduating art school majoring in ceramics and sculpture Mark apprenticed and worked for several sculptors learning the in and outs of a 3D studio and how art, craft and construction really all came together. At the time it never dawned on him that the skills he was learning were the skills needed to build his dream guitars, the ones he always wanted but could never find. That was till the day his gear obsession brought him to the shop of a small boutique builder. This simple interaction of picking up of the ebay purchased instrument he had led to a larger conversation and a tour through the small shop. Watching the process first hand it immediately clicked to him, “Wait this isn’t wizardry its just math. I can do this …Hell I can do this better!!” It was at this point all of Mark’s skills and passions came together and the real journey begun. Mark learned and researched everything he could about what exactly was needed to build a guitar and make it work. Mark keeping with his non traditional manor did not merely copy or replicate a guitar from a blue print, he reinvented the whole instrument from the ground up. First 100% by hand improvising with only a few tools. He added new tools and techniques with every build. Each tool a new skill added to the possibilities his growing shop. Constantly improving with logarithmic growth from one guitar to the next each guitar was a new High Water Mark. The studio located on his rural property transformed from a detached garage became a full equipped luthiers work space. A place were and both state of the art and old school as hell collide with artistic intention. Each guitar is step forward a learning curve of greatness. The brand’s name is the goal for each instrument, to be the next High Water Mark. Each guitar at completion is the best guitar Mark has made to date. Each one a step in the evolution of furthering of the instrument itself. To own a High Water Guitar is to invest in a progression of a body of art, from the hands of an evolving artist. It’s more than just ordering another factory guitar from a box store, to play a High Water Guitar is to play the rising tide.