Meet Melissa Norwood | Pyrography Artist & Painter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Melissa Norwood and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Melissa, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
When my husband and I bought several acres of land, we knew the potential to start our own business was definitely a possibility. My husband, Victor, bought a sawmill early on because we knew we wanted to harvest some of the Eastern Red Cedar off of our farm to help build our retirement home. While Victor and our son, Gavin, were using the sawmill to make cedar boards, I was interested in making walking/hiking sticks. Our farm produces many natural, vine twisted sticks and of course, they were so beautiful I would work diligently taking the bark off of them, sanding them, and coating them with polyurethane to sell in vendor events. Watching my husband and son mill cedar boards, there were some pieces of the boards that were not usable for the house, but, cut into smaller sections, I knew they could become something beautiful. My husband bought me my very first wood burner and of course, at first, that was a disaster!! But, I didn’t give up!! I kept practicing and practicing and watching other pyrographers on social media, just to try and understand this new craft. after LOTS of trial and error, I began to get the hang of it, and having my own stash of boards off of my farm just made it a lot more appealing to me. Soon I began to get customers wanting custom work done and of course I was extremely nervous doing work for someone else and I truly wasn’t sure of this new path that I was taking. I started with small projects, then built my confidence up enough to take on larger projects and finally, after 4 years, I am doing Pet portraits and much larger projects for my customers. Our Journey has just begun, and we plan to build our business into much bigger things like furniture. We have learned so much in this process, we have learned to appreciate nature and its tremendous beauty and we absolutely LOVE what we are doing.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
All of my art is usually done on wood that we harvested ourselves. A lot of people don’t realize how much work is involved when you harvest the wood yourselves. From cutting the tree down, dragging it out of the woods, de-limbing the tree, getting it down to the sawmill, cutting it into boards, air drying for at least a year, planing the boards, cutting them into different lengths, sanding the boards and THEN we are ready for the designs, pyrography and polyurethaning.

Lessons we have learned along the way have been: be selective with the tree cutting, don’t do any of this hard work on a hot day and most of all, BE PATIENT!!

I have a lot of customers who are close friends of mine that have put a lot of trust in me to do their special projects, for anniversaries, birthdays, pet portraits for pets that have passed etc., I have learned through all of the projects how to be patient with myself, and hopefully not be so hard on myself. I don’t think I’m quite considered as a professional, but that would be a huge goal to accomplish.

The thing that set my artwork apart from others is that we use our own resources on our own property. I use a lot of Cedar, Ash and will begin using more walnut and hopefully try some artwork on sycamore wood.
Also, people are starting to notice that my artwork has A LOT of encouraging words, and I also use A LOT of Bible verses. Customers have made comments on how much thought has been put into the artwork. Makes me feel good… people need encouragement every day

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well, since we kind of live quite a ways from anything REAL fun, I would probably take my friends shopping at the Bristol, TN pinnacle. Lots of shops and lots of places to eat like Drakes, Aubreys, chic – filet, etc. There is a new Casino in Bristol, approx. 35 minutes from me, I’m not a gambler, but if they wanted to go, we would go.

I would DEFINITELY take them riding on our Kabota through the trails in the woods. Maybe gift them with a hiking stick when they arrive and then go hiking in the woods.

Go grab a sub at the local subway, go on a hike and have a picnic in the woods is DEFINITELY one of my favorite things to do. Also, fishing in our pond is one of my favorite things to do.

Not much to do in my neck of the woods..lol

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I would like to dedicate my Shoutout to the group of Pyrographers I follow on Instagram. These pyrographers have very different styles and the support everyone receives from each other is just amazing. There is one particular lady from Canada I would love to recognize though, her name is Ave. Her page name is : ave_burnt_impressions . This sweet lady is one of the BEST and most professional pyrographers that I follow. The work on her page is undeniably some of the best work you will see out of the pyrography world. Ave took time out of her day to answer any question I had, even when I first started this medium and for a professional like herself to give tips and encouragement to a beginner says a lot about her!!

Thank you Ave and all of my pyrography pals on Instagram for the encouragement, support and sharing your beautiful work with the world.

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