Sophomore Brandon Clark, a computer science major, has drawn attention from countless strangers who have seen him working on the design of a ram for his longboard. The ornate illustration loops and flows, a contrast to the dark burn marks that detail the ram.
His art form is called pyrography — using a metallic pen or point to burn a design onto a wood surface.
In his Facebook post on the Overheard at UNC group, Clark explained that the encouragement from other students helped motivate him to finish the taxing process. He posted a picture of the finished product, captioned, “I hope every single person who said anything to me sees this, all your words of encouragement mean SO much to me, and were what motivated me to finish.”
Clark has garnered countless compliments from students who approached him out of curiosity during his 40 to 45 hours working on the board.
“People would stop and ask me what it is that I’m doing,” he said. “A lot of people seemed really curious about what I was doing, because it’s kind of an obscure form of art.”
Clark, who taught himself pyrography, also said school pride played a big factor in the conception of his project.
“I thought it’d be cool to have something UNC that I made myself,” he said. “They don’t actually sell any UNC longboards.”
Many students have asked Clark if he was interested in doing artwork on their personal items. Although he never intended pyrography to be something he’d profit from, he said he’s thinking about it.
