…is this thing on…?

Hello hello! Welcome in if you’re new, and welcome back if you’re not.

My name’s Alphie. I’m a self-taught wood burn artist, and I made this website to have a space to talk openly about creating art.

What is Pyrography?

Pyrography (using intentional burning to write or draw images) is one of the oldest forms of art! Wood burning specifically refers to pyrography being done on wood, but pyrography can be done on a bunch of different organic mediums, including dried gourds, paper, leaves, leather, and even bone.

Pyrography is more commonly associated with outsider art than it is with the traditional art world/gallery scene, so getting in-person fine art pyrography lessons or workshops is much more of a rarity than it is for, say, painting or pottery. There are a bunch of tutorials online to get beginners started in the art, but the lack of a formal in-person or academic community means that learning more advanced skills and techniques comes down to learning from your peers or your own experimentation. In this way, I would consider every pyrographer to be self taught!

My Story

Though my last art class was in middle school, I come from a family of artists and artisans. My Yaya tried her hand in every art form you can think of, and had enough supplies in her studio to rival Michael’s. Her first husband was a painter for NASA and Time Life, and her second husband (my grandpa) was a skilled metalworker who took scraps from his machinist job to make small metal puzzles. All three of her children were skilled musicians and artists, with one of my aunts now owning a web design business, and the other running a nonprofit to bring music workshops to people with special needs. With my mother’s own love for furniture restoration and my father’s eccentric doodles on every scrap of paper in the house, my home was always filled with amazing creators honing their crafts.

This environment had very much primed me to be interested in art from a young age, but because of some fine motor disabilities (and the whole being a child thing) I lacked the “natural gift” my relatives seemed to have, and I was always frustrated with my art. I felt that it didn’t live up to the expectations I had for myself, and that any art form I tried had already been perfected and moved on from by everyone around me.

I picked up wood burning in 2019 as an escape from this self-inflicted pressure to compete with my family lineage, and surprisingly… I was good at it. As someone who had never found any art to be intuitive to me, the ease with which I used my cheap $15 burner was life changing. But more importantly, I loved every part of the medium. I loved the cozy warmth of the burner in my hand, and the smell of campfire that came off every piece as I worked on it.

My first project was a set of Critical Role coasters for my uncle. My second was an attempt at recreating an Alphonse Mucha piece on the front of a cheap wooden craft box that I’d had sitting around for a decade. By my third project, I was completely sold on the medium. I happily spent 6+ hours a day making art until my hands cramped and my eyes watered from the smoke. I have since gone on to make hundreds of pieces. Over the years, I understood what my family was trying to tell me: that the process is the point. It’s not about creating something perfect, it’s about enjoying the act of making. xx