Lasers: The New Age of Art Making

Elizabeth Mattson is a freelance artist from Michigan. Every Saturday she sets up a booth to sell her art at a craft fair. As patrons walk by she offers her business card, a small 2x3 piece of plywood engraved with her credentials. On display are various circular framed plywood cutouts. They are designs of intricately woven pointed stars with a single line that move from the edges of the frame, inwards, creating an image of symmetrically entangled complex lines. She is able to do this with a laser engraving machine.

Engraving machines work by burning through layers of material with a laser, leaving an incision. According to an article posted on All3DP, a website created for laser engraving hobbyists, these machines have been around since the 1960s. In recent years the machines have been re-engineered for household use. There is a growing online community that posts content with these devices in action, personalizing anything from wallets to watches by engraving names or initials.

Mattson, a tall middle aged woman with long wavy salt and pepper hair, shares about her art. “I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a year and a half. Around this time I started drawing knots,” said Mattson. She left college to pursue craft making full time. She says, “I worked at a job with CNC routers, which are computer-controlled routers, and it can cut out whatever shape you can program into it.” This inspired her to approach her craft in a different way.

Her partner, Kitt Kerkvliet, talked about this being a turning point for Mattson. He said, “The biggest part of it was that she was able to engage the art more.” He goes on to say, “She has moved through multiple programs and different lasers to increase output and get better results.”
As Mattson looks towards the future, she sees herself experimenting with different mediums. “I imagine my business is going to evolve into other things,” she said. With infinite creative ideas and a machine that can replicate her art she says, “The possibilities really do feel endless.”