To be honest, I stumbled upon it quite unexpectedly. The very first wood burning I ever created was during my high school years in 2009. I was taking a general shop class, but instead of focusing on woodworking like I was supposed to, I spent most of my time doodling and goofing off in class. My instructor told me if I was going to be in his class, I might as well do something the involved wood. S
o, he handed me a soldering iron and I burned my first design—a simple image of a white-tailed deer—onto a cutting board, which I later gifted to my stepfather. I naively didn't think much about it at the time, and I had no idea how much that moment would later shape my artistic journey. For years, I didn’t give wood burning another thought. It wasn’t until my final year of college, while pursuing my degree in Illustration, that I picked it up again. I created another wood-burning piece for a class assignment and received high praise from my instructor for my design work. While I appreciated the recognition, I didn’t consider pursuing pyrography seriously and continued exploring other artistic paths without a clear direction. Nevertheless, I persisted in art, not knowing what I was going to do with it for years later. That changed when I met my husband, being a woodworker, reignited my passion for working with wood. Looking back, I realized that every experience—however small—had led me here. Life has a way of guiding us toward where we’re meant to be, and I finally understood that ignoring that calling would be a disservice to myself. I concluded that if life guides you in a particular direction, it would be a disservice to ignore it.
