Somewhere in Florence, Mississippi, on warm sunny days with birds chirping and cicadas singing, Courtney Lipscomb can often be found sitting in her covered back patio, with her two dogs playing in the yard, alone with her thoughts, talking to herself or in prayer. While on this patio, her hands aren’t idle. With a wooden birch panel in front of her and a special pen in her hand, Lipscomb creates her own nature scenes on the unconventional canvas. The woodburning pen heats and sears the wood as she repeatedly strokes the panel, the faintest smell of smoke—reminiscent of a campfire—wafting into the air.
Each stroke brings her closer to creating a beautiful drawing. Lipscomb starts by penciling in a graphite transfer, then adding the intricate details by hand. Once the picture is complete, she fills in the artwork and paints it in watercolor, before covering the wooden panel with a translucent polycrylic sealant.
“I love everything about it. I love how the pen sears the wood and how it just cuts like butter against the wood,” Lipscomb said of the process. “It’s my therapy, for sure.”
Art as therapy is something that has always resonated with Lipscomb. As a student at Delta State University, Lipscomb majored in art. She had previously considered pursuing art therapy, but realized that wasn’t the career path for her. With a passion for photography, she always loved the idea of shooting documentary-style photos. However, she ultimately found her career footing in art education, completing an alternate-route licensing program during her senior year and graduating in 2000.
The Southaven native has been a teacher at Florence Middle School for 10 years where she teaches art to sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. Over the course of her 25-year teaching career, Lipscomb joined the Mississippi Art Educator Association, which holds its annual conference in November at the Mississippi Museum of Art. The conference grants educators from across the state to meet and mingle and hear from industry professionals in panels, keynote speeches and workshops. It was at one of these conventions that Lipscomb’s future in art took another turn.
As part of the multi-day event, each teacher had the opportunity to participate in a concentration workshop where they got to be hands-on with a craft of their choosing and create art. This November day in 2021 found Lipscomb sitting in a room learning about woodburning. Though she had never done woodburning before, she was immediately good at it.
“It was just the most fabulous thing I’d ever done,” she said, recounting the first time she worked with the woodburning pen.
‘An Umbrella Effect’
Lipscomb began creating more woodburning artwork on her own. After a year of practice, she integrated the medium into her classroom, reserving the lesson for her eighth grade students. Once the students learn, she allows four or five of them to create in the classroom at a time.
“There’s so many different avenues to make art, and when you’re teaching, you try to make an umbrella effect with students, and you want to introduce them to all these motions of in and out, and it’s very calming and very soothing and very therapeutic,” she said.
The classroom isn’t the only place people have the chance to learn from Lipscomb. Two years ago, Lipscomb applied and was accepted as an artist in the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi.
“It’s nice to be recognized. It’s nice to share what you love with other people. It’s just nice to be a member of the craftsman guild. That was on my bucket list,” Lipscomb recalled of her acceptance into the guild.
Before she began woodburning, Lipscomb created art with embroidery, a hobby she still practices. Originally, she thought she would submit into the guild as an embroiderer, but as she continued on with her woodburning, she knew that’s where her unique creativity shined the most. Her instincts proved correct.
Guild President Elizabeth Montabault said Lipscomb’s take on woodburning is something that sets her apart.
“The attention to detail is pretty overwhelming,” Montabault told the Mississippi Free Press while admiring a piece of Lipscomb’s artwork, a large image of a raven and flowers watercolored orange. “We have a lot of woodburners but no one that’s really anything quite like this,” she added. “We have some really interesting men that burn wood, and we only have two women.”
As a member, Lipscomb’s woodburning pieces are on display and available for sale at the guild center. Lipscomb also participates in yearly craftshows and demonstration days.
‘I Want to Do This’
Last spring while Lipscomb was preparing to teach the community about woodburning through the guild’s connections, another local woman was praying to find something special.
Becky Bowen whispered a prayer to God as she stepped onto the premises of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi, hopeful but unsure what, or who, she would find. As the youth service coordinator for the Madison County Library System, Bowen had an activities calendar to fill ahead of summer.
This day, members of the craftsman guild were having a demo day at the Waller Center. Various artists were there teaching their craft to interested visitors. Bowen had hit the jackpot.
The library holds the Summer Reading program every year, which not only encourages students to read throughout the summer break, but offers a myriad of weekly activities. Once she entered the guild and saw the array of artists demonstrating their crafts, she wanted to see them participate in the summer program.
The national theme of last summer at the library was “Color Your World.” The idea of visual creativity led Bowen to seek artists like Lipscomb, who caught her eye. Lipscomb accepted a request to do a demonstration for the children at the library.
“I like to try to give the kids that can’t go to summer camp (a) summer camp (experience) and bring in anything that I think might be a little bit outside of the box or a neat experience,” Bowen told the Mississippi Free Press. “I think there’s so much of a focus on electronics and on sports. … I love bringing something that potentially kids can do, and if they’re not exposed to it, they’re not going to know. So this gave them an opportunity.”
So, during one of the eight weeks of the summer program, Lipscomb brought in pieces of wood and woodburning pens to the Ridgeland Public Library. She explained the technique and craft of woodburning and showed the children how to make marks on the wood. The kids got to view sample artworks she had previously created before having the opportunity to practice using the wood-burning pens themselves as part of the session. The young library patrons, between the ages of 6 and 12, created their own marks or spelled out words. Bowen noted she could tell the experience clicked for some students.
“Courtney had such a great way with the kids and did such beautiful artwork, and I really saw the light bulbs go off,” she told the Mississippi Free Press. “The kids were like ‘I want to do this,’ and Courtney assured them this is not an expensive hobby, that these wood-burning tools aren’t that expensive and where to get them.”
For Lipscomb, she appreciated the opportunity to share something she loves with children of the community.
Throughout the past four years of being a wood-burning artist, Lipscomb has been awarded multiple art educator awards and received a $500 grant to assist with her art making.
“I feel like this is what I’m meant to do,” Lipscomb said of woodburning, “Somebody said, ‘When you talk about certain things, your whole demeanor changes,’ and it does. It’s just sharing a passion with other people.”
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