Sixteen-year-old Savannah Roberts was upset when she didn’t get into the art class she wanted to at Hope Secondary.
Little did she know, the woodworking class she had to take instead would lead her to a new art form and, eventually, an online business.
Roberts first picked up a wood burner in her woodworking class last fall. Encouraged by her art teacher Chris Janzen, her woodworking teacher Cal Chatwin and her aunt Lisa Jane Swales, she is now making and selling her art through her Facebook group Savy Wood Designs.
Although new to wood burning, Roberts has been drawing since she was five years old. “You need to know how to draw to woodburn” she said.
However, there are other skills and a touch of bravery involved in fashioning art out of wood.
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“I like using the woodworking tools too. A lot of people are scared of them, you just kind of have to get used to them. Know how to use it or you might cut a finger,” she said.
Wood burning is more time consuming, as it takes getting acquainted with the grain and knots of this new canvas.
“Woodworking is different because you have to sand down your wood. It’s harder because it depends on which kind of wood too — there’s softwood, which is easier to wood burn and then there’s hardwood which is a lot more difficult, takes it a while to burn, so you have to take time with it. And then sometimes on wood there’s knots and stuff so the knots burn really easily. I like to use the knots,” she said.
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Some knots Roberts uses artistically — one such knot became an eyeball on one of her pieces. This is one of the things she enjoys most, being creative with the wood and making unique items. It’s a calming process, working with this new medium, and she loves the end result and how people react when they see it.
Many of her commissioned pieces have been deeply personal. One request was for a family calendar made from a piece of driftwood with several round slices of a branch attached, each containing a symbol and birthday of each family member.
Another request was for Roberts to wood burn the name of a man into a vintage designed shaving blade, in his girlfriend’s handwriting.
“I thought that was pretty cool because I’ve never had that request before, that was actually really fun to do,” she said.
“I can look at something and I can draw it, really easily, it’s one of my favourite things to do. Or, if I have it in my brain, because I’ve looked at something, if its stuck in my brain I can draw it really easily.”
The ideas are plentiful- some come through her own imagination, others through Pinterest and Youtube.
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Roberts has been making art for most of her life. Running a business is something new to her and she has been learning a lot.
When she sold out of her ornaments on wood blocks at a Hope Secondary market, she knew she had hit on something people liked. Her aunt helped her set up a Facebook group, Savy Wood Designs, and since then the requests have been steady.
“I need to have more of the same pieces in stock, because it sells out fast. And also meeting a lot of people is really interesting, and I love meeting new people,” she said of the learning she’s done so far.
The hardest part has been figuring out how to price her work. She has been meeting other entrepreneurs in the process she started when her Facebook page went live, most of whom tell her to up her prices.
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