The Sundanced Wood Origin Story: From Kitchen Table Sketches to Hand-Carved Signs

I have always felt like an artist. Before I ever picked up a wood burner or carved my first sign, there were pencils, coloring books, and a family that let me create.

The Artistic Roots Behind Sundanced Wood

My brother was a pencil artist. He would draw these incredibly detailed pictures, and I would sit there in amazement watching him work. He used to hand me something simple, a vase or a flower, and tell me to draw it. Then he would look at it and say, "Draw it again." So I did. "Draw it again." So I did. By the twelfth time I had drawn that same vase, he would line up the first attempt next to the last one and show me how far it had come. That lesson stuck with me. It is still how I think about getting better at anything.

My sister taught me something too, even if neither of us knew it at the time. We grew up without iPads or screens. To pass the time we had coloring books and pencils, and the way she colored was so inspiring to me. Anytime you see color in one of my pieces today, I am pulling from those afternoons watching my sister fill in a page.

From Christmas Tree Slices to Wood Art

The wood came into the picture around 2013. Back then, when you bought a Christmas tree, they would slice the bottom off the trunk. I started collecting those slices and turning them into artwork and Christmas ornaments. There was something special about those little rounds of wood.

Around the same time, I noticed how much good furniture people were throwing away. I would walk the streets with my kids and pick up dressers, tables, anything with life still in it. I would bring it home, cut it down into thirty different pieces, and see what it wanted to become.

Watch The Full Video on Sundanced Wood's YouTube

The Turning Point That Led to Woodworking

In 2014 I checked myself into rehab. During that stretch I was not really drawing or making anything. But at one point they handed me a coloring book and a box of crayons, and the moment I opened it I felt that same pull I had as a kid watching my brother and sister create. That old part of me was still there.

When I got out, I picked up woodworking and wood burning in earnest. One thing led to another. I started showing up at vendor events and selling a few pieces. The first time someone told me they wanted a piece of my art hanging in their home, it was priceless. I was practically giving work away back then, just because it meant so much to hear that someone wanted it on their wall.

I cannot really tell the story of where I am now without the back history. Even getting in trouble in kindergarten for drawing band logos on my desk is part of it. It is all connected.

My First Memory of the Sugar Loaf Signs

When I was five or six years old, my family used to take trips up to Sugar Loaf. I was the youngest, so I spent those trips being pushed along in a stroller. Sugar Loaf had these railroad-tie sidewalks back then, so the ride was bumpy, and I remember looking up from that stroller at the signs hanging over the shops. They were huge. They were vibrant. The paint looked like it was jumping right off the wood. I have felt a strong connection to Sugar Loaf ever since.

Meeting Clay Boone, the Original Sugar Loaf Sign Maker

Fast forward about twenty years. I came into Sugar Loaf one day with my smaller work, the pyrography and wood-burned pieces, and set up at a vendor tent. I got to talking with someone who told me I should be making the signs in Sugar Loaf. My first thought was, yeah, right. How would I ever get involved doing something on that scale, with that kind of artistry?

Then they told me the original sign maker for Sugar Loaf lived three blocks away. So I walked down, knocked on his door, and introduced myself as one of his biggest fans, because I was. His name was Clay Boone. His father had started the original sign business in Sugar Loaf, and Clay had carried it on.

That knock on the door changed everything.

Hand-Carved Signs, Furniture Restoration, and Wood Art

Everything I make at Sundanced Wood today, the hand-carved signs, the furniture restoration, the wood art, traces back through all of it. The lessons at the kitchen table, the color I learned from my sister, the wood I pulled off the curb, the road back to myself, and the signs that first stopped a little kid in a stroller.

Watch the full story in the video above or on my YouTube Channel, and take a look around to see what we are making now visit www.sundancedwood.com.

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