Today we’d like to introduce you to Terry And Sarah Snow.
Hi Terry and Sarah, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
From childhood projects to adult jobs we’ve both had lots of experience fabricating and working with our hands, including creating with wood. One of Terry’s first jobs was working in his girlfriend’s dad’s carpentry shop and in college Sarah had a work study job building exhibits at the Children’s Museum.
Around 2012, Terry became serious about wood crafts after taking some woodworking classes at ACC. At first he set out to make wooden toys and small furniture. Sarah got a cheap pyrography (wood burner) machine to add some details. At this point it was pretty much a hobby that we enjoyed together.
There are a lot of directions that our woodwork practice could have gone but Terry really took off with the wood turning and carving. Meanwhile, Sarah outgrew the cheap wood burner and now uses a professional quality machine with variable temperatures and tips. By 2014, we started looking for ways to make something more of our hobby and decided to apply to the Blue Genie Art Holiday Bazaar. Once accepted we had to create an official business and get our Texas tax payer ID and DBA (Doing Business As).
We’ve been doing business as Chaos Woods ever since but our work has changed. Our skills and craftsmanship have certainly improved and become more sculptural and complex. Today, we make a lot of wooden spoons and wood vampire stakes that we sell online through Etsy and to wholesale gift shops throughout the country on Faire Marketplace. We still participate in the Blue Genie Art Bazaar and other regional arts and craft fairs. We’re also working on more fine art sculptures and pyrography drawings that we’d like to display in galleries.
Terry is self-taught. Sarah achieved a Bachelor in Fine Art degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest obstacle is finding venues and places where people can see our creations.
We spend endless hours applying to open calls, sharing our work online and social media, setting up at fairs, networking, organizing, and doing all we can to make and find opportunities. We’re lucky to have an amazing creative community in Central Texas but we could really use more opportunities. It’s competitive because there’s a lot of great talent, but there’s also just not enough opportunities that fit our vibe. We make a lot of witchy, surreal, dark art that doesn’t fit just anywhere.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We collaborate to make sculptures and gifts out of wood with surprising juxtapositions, exceptional craftsmanship and a touch of chaos! We’re drawn to unusual, surreal, and odd juxtapositions and concepts that make us laugh. We especially enjoy making each other laugh and hope our delight from working together transcends each piece.
We also care about the environment and seek wood that is sustainable, recycled, and ecologically friendly. On “big brush day” we cruise around the neighborhood looking for interesting wood, and wood we can make vampire stakes out of. We have stacks of logs around the house in various states of “seasoning” because it takes at least 6 months for wood to dry out enough to be carved, otherwise it may warp and change as it dehydrates.
We like creating functional items, like the spoons we make, that can bring handmade into everyday life because we’re really against mass-produced consumer waste and cheap crap that will end up in the landfill. We love the idea of making heirloom objects that can last for generations.
We are very proud of the creative life we have made together. It is gratifying to create together and try to bring engaging, positive, and beautiful things into the world.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Deciding to make art as more than a hobby is extremely risky. It takes a lot of time and sacrifices to even just get by. You have to really love making art to make it work and it has to be your number one priority. You don’t have time or money for the other things you might otherwise enjoy, like socializing or gardening. The riskiest move we made was Terry quitting his day job to make art and run Chaos Woods full time. We’ve almost given up numerous times and sent him back to earn a more reliable income. But our ultimate goal is for Sarah to be able to quit her day job, too. For now, that is far more of a risk than we’re willing to take.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://chaoswoods.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chaos_woods/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chaoswoods
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCiEL04sdCOV-O0v5kE7TOog
Image Credits
Portrait, Josie Hughes
All other photography, Chaos Woods
