Welcome!

Hello everyone, and welcome! I’m so glad you stopped by.

Whether you’re an art collector, a fellow maker, or someone who just loves the natural look and smell of scorched wood, I created this space to bring you along on my journey. This blog is where I’ll be sharing the stories behind my pieces, everyday life inside my studio, and what it’s like navigating art-making as a disabled pyrographer.

Discovering (and Rediscovering) the Flame

My relationship with wood burning actually started years ago. My father first introduced me to pyrography when I was a kid, but as time went on, I grew up and completely forgot about it.

I didn’t think about wood burning again until the COVID lockdowns. I was ordering groceries online for pickup one day and stumbled across a basic wood burning set. It was meant for children, but I thought it would be fun and give me a chance to reminisce, so I decided to add it to my order. That set definitely wasn’t high quality, and the brass tip stripped pretty quickly, but it sparked that childhood interest all over again. It pushed me to invest in better tools, which gave me better control and were much easier to work with. That better equipment drove me to practice, experiment, and really hone my skills.

What made me fall in love with pyrography is how tactile it is. That is my favorite part of the medium. Once a design is finished, you can do more than just look at it. You can run your fingers over the wood and feel every burn, line, and texture. I think that tactile quality makes wood-burnt art so much more accessible, whether someone is visually impaired or just appreciates the extra sensory experience of touching a finished piece.

Art, Adaptations, and Pacing

Creating detailed pyrography takes a lot of time and focus, and doing it with a disability means being really intentional about my process.

Pyrography is physically demanding. It takes steady hand pressure, fine motor control, and constant attention to posture, heat, and fume ventilation. There is a lot that can go wrong! Navigating life and art with a disability has taught me how to listen to my body, adapt my workspace, and honor my own pace instead of pushing through pain.

Being a disabled creator doesn’t mean compromising on the quality or depth of my work. It just means my studio days might look a little different than someone else’s. I use adaptive tools, set up my space to support my physical needs, and try to practice patience with my output. I wanted to start this blog to share that side of things honestly – the trial and error, the adaptations that work, the ones that don’t work, and how I build a creative practice that works for me and my body.

What You Can Expect Here

As Behind the Flame grows, here’s a quick idea of what I’ll be posting:

 Behind-the-Scenes & Works-in-Progress: A look at how raw wood gets prepped, burned, and sealed into finished pieces.

 Adaptive Studio Tips: The ergonomic tools, workspace setups, and pacing strategies that help keep my studio accessible.

 Collector & Care Guides: Simple tips on caring for woodburnt art, understanding different techniques, and picking pieces for your home.

 Honest Thoughts on Disability and Creativity: Real talk about patience, disability, and finding joy in the slow burn of making things by hand.

Let’s Connect!

Thank you so much for being here at the start of this blogging journey!

I’d love to hear from you! Have you ever tried wood-burning before, or is this your first time coming across pyrography? Drop a comment below and let’s chat!

If you’d like to follow along, feel free to sign up for my newsletter or take a look around the gallery.

Warmly,

Amanda