Dot by Dot…..

I spent some time chatting with a friend on a video call about pyrography earlier - telling about how I got started, a very long time ago (28 years maybe).... in part it's the story of how greenwomancrafts started as well.

Once upon a time I was researching for a PhD in a completely unrelated topic, and also studying paganism, and especially the Anderson Feri and Reclaiming traditions (perhaps a little more so than was useful for a doctoral student). Many folk take on part time jobs to pay the bills while studying, and I certainly did that, but I was also a maker, and was always exploring new ideas and techniques and throughout my undergraduate studies had sold assorted crafted items to friends, family and gift shops to make extra cash.

Somehow I discovered that a soldering iron (which I already owned) could be used to burn wood - called pyrography or poker work, and that combined with a desire to turn many sticks into wands or runes seemed like an ideal and potentially profitable experiment, with a freely (important) available source of raw materials.

Pyrography with a soldering iron is time consuming and either relaxing or infuriating. Soldering irons don't heat up especially fast or very hot, and thus to mark the wood, designs needed to be created dot by dot, holding the iron to the wood to let it burn. I created some really gorgeous items this way, mostly wands and runes.

Unfortunately I kept very, very few of my early pieces - most were sold on eBay or to a local new age store for extra spending money - and this of course was back in the days before phones with cameras or affordable to students digital cameras even (I scanned things to sell on eBay on one of the library scanners) so I don’t even have photos of anything.

The little Greenwoman below was one of my early pieces - and somewhere in a box is her friend, a Sheela Na Gig, both long term allies and beloved deities of mine, and thus totally among the first things I made. the wood slice is yew wood, and from an off cut from my Father's workshop who was learning woodturning at a similar time.

Early Greenwoman on yew wood

The Greenwoman leant her name to my business - Greenwomancrafts, around this point, and then became the inspiration for the oldest of my tattoos, and business logo that i've used for decades.

I eventually upgraded my soldering iron to a pyrography machine - one of the best on the market at that point, and one that seemed vastly expensive to me...... and then that was upgraded to an even fancier one a good long while ago, which itself seems amazingly basic compared to the fancy digital, temperature controlled ones that I'm now seeing.

My pyrography - on wands, ogham, runes, athames, altar pieces, pendants, new and upcycled wood and so much more has headed out around the world to grace the altars and rituals of pagans.

You will find much of my work for sale in my shop here.

Labyrinth Sphere (find it my shop here)

Ivy wand - find it now in my shop here!