Business is booming for 12-year-old

Seth Mangin is making a name for himself selling his woodburned art at the Port Washington farmers market.

That’s not notable in and of itself, but what is noteworthy is the fact Seth is 12 years old.

It’s also notable that the Port Washington boy, a seventh-grader at Thomas Jefferson Middle School only learned the craft after his grandparents bought him a woodburning kit last Christmas.

“He’s always liked to draw,” Seth’s mother Lisa Moberly said. “He saw the kit and said, ‘That might be cool.’ 

“It (woodburning) just came naturally.”

Seth sells the items he has made and takes orders for custom work. 

“If people like a certain piece but aren’t sure about the wood, I can offer them choices,” Seth said. “If they want a certain design, I can do that.”

In those cases, his mother said, Seth will do a drawing and then work with a client to tweak it until it’s what they like. Then, he’ll do the woodburning.

His work right now is primarily plaques, signs, letter openers and some magnets, though he’s made such items as tic tac toe boards, but he’s working on expanding to such items as trays and cheeseboards.

For Christmas, he may make some ornaments.

The ideas, his mother said, “are endless.”

While some artists say the wood speaks to them and leads them to the final form, Seth said just the opposite.

“I tell the wood what to do,” he said. “There are so many things you can do with it.”

Seth said he was inspired to sell his art by one of his mother’s clients — Moberly teaches movement classes — who was so impressed she urged him to set up shop.

He picked the name Burnings and Beads for his business — his mother sells beaded jewelry at the farmers market booth — set up a Gmail account and had some business cards printed up.

“It seems to be going pretty good so far,” he said.

He’s gotten some rave reviews, his mother said. She pointed to one woman who bought a piece for her brother, whose wife had recently died. The woman later returned, she said, telling Seth that the piece intrigued her brother. “It was really neat to see the life come back into him,” she said.

  Seth does more than just the traditional woodburning using a pencil-like instrument to draw lines of various thicknesses for shading.

He also does a more abstract form of the art, called the Lichtenberg method, that uses high-voltage electricity to burn the wood.

It’s a technique he saw on a YouTube video and was intrigued by. 

“He saw it and said, ‘This is so cool,’” his mother recalled.

The technique calls for driving two nails into a piece of wood, coating it with a mixture of hot water and baking soda, then attaching a microwave transformer with alligator clips.

The method is so intense that it’s not unusual to find flames springing up, creating deep voids in the wood — hence he’s not allowed to do the work without an adult present.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Moberly said. “You don’t know what kind of pattern you’re going to get.”

The Lichtenberg method creates tree-like designs in the wood. Seth has been experimenting with using an epoxy to fill the voids.

In terms of materials, Seth sometimes buys blank plaques and wood to burn but other times searches out wood on his own, cutting it to size, sanding it and then burning the wood and sealing it.

“Sometimes people supply the wood,” he said, and sometimes he visits the city woodpile and scavenges for wood that would work.

Live edge wooden pieces are popular, said Seth, adding, “people like the natural look best.”

Among the motifs that sell best are those featuring a lighthouse and an owl’s head.

His pieces range in price from 25 cents for a small magnet to $45 for a relatively large Lichtenberg plaque.

“I really enjoy doing this,” Seth said, noting he spends about two hours a day working on his art — more when he gets inspired by a project.

And in large part, that’s what it’s all about, Moberly said, noting Seth has always had an artistic streak that she and his father Shawn Mangin encouraged. “He’s doing things that make him happy.”

Seth is donating 5% of his profits to his art teacher at Dunwiddie Elementary School, Michael Styles, to buy art supplies for the school.

“He really supported my art,” he said.

His mother said donating a portion of his profits was a requirement for his business, adding Seth determined how much would be donated and to what cause.

The rest of the money Seth earns is going to his college fund and toward a lathe he hopes to purchase.

But money isn’t the main purpose, Moberly said. It’s about keeping him excited about his art — and about teaching the many lessons that come with it. After all, Seth has to use math when he colors his pieces and figures out the ratio to mix epoxy, as well as when he figures out profits and expenses. 

Seth said he’s got too many interests to know whether wood burning will lead to a career, but he wants to continue doing it as a hobby for as long as possible.

He will be at the Port farmers market Saturday, Aug. 24, and hopes to get a spot at the winter market as well, perhaps with wood burned ornaments as well as his other items.