ABOUT HANNAH
This is me, age 4.
Not too much has changed.
About Wood burning
Or if you’re fancy, pyrography.
That word means “fire writing,” and I wish I could tell you the image it conjures is the truth—that I spend my workdays dancing around in my studio, waving a flaming staff at a chunk of tree, risking life and limb and carbon monoxide poisoning to create my pieces.*
Unfortunately for my street cred, I use a Colwood electric wood burning pen (see above), which is a gorgeously effective tool, but essentially a hot marker.† Less badass than a burning staff, undeniably better for detail work.
Also less likely to lose me my security deposit.
If you’ve tried wood burning, chances are it was at summer camp. You make a trivet out of popsicle sticks and hot glue and your counselor tells you to decorate it, so you grab something that looks like a giant pencil, plug it in, wait three and a half minutes for it to heat up, burn your finger testing the tip, drop it onto your lap and burn a hole through your shorts, and finally manage to eke out a blotchy pine tree that will cause your ever-encouraging mother to exclaim, “What a nice canoe!” when you give it to her as a gift.^
Yeah, that was pretty much my experience, too.
But then I was in my twenties, living in Boston, and on a whim I picked up a $20 wood burning tool at a hobby shop. I proceeded to ignore it for a year, then moved to Alaska** and had a month and a half where I had no job and way too much time on my hands, and I picked it up. And from the beginning, for a reason I still haven’t put my finger on††, wood burning clicked for me. It felt natural in a way that no other form of visual art ever had.
I’ve been burning and learning and expanding my knowledge and capabilities ever since. For the last few years (since I moved to Denver), I’ve been gaining experience in different kinds of woodworking (furniture & cabinet building, carving, wood turning) and finding ways to integrate these new skill sets into my wood burning. It’s been tons of fun, and I’m excited to keep discovering!
*I badly want to meet the person who does this. She sounds like Xena.
†Xena wouldn’t use a hot marker.
^See “The Lanyard”. You’re welcome.
**Long story, but yes, it is very pretty, and yes, it is very cold.
††Unlike my wood burner, which I have definitively and repeatedly put my finger on.