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Local artist’s TN wood signs make social media splash
By Rachel Totten
Published February 19, 2023


tennessee wood signs


Missy Ament’s artistic creations have taken social media by storm, especially her Tennessee wall hanging signs, which garnered an overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception from Redditors in Knoxville.

“I was very surprised at the response the signs got on Reddit,” said Ament. “I might have expected to get a little interest stirred up on other social media platforms that are not as anonymous as Reddit.”

The laser-cut wood signs are shaped into the state of Tennessee and feature Knoxville’s distinct skyline, complete with the Sunsphere and Great Smoky Mountains. Ament also makes signs for other cities in Tennessee, including Nashville, Memphis and Chattanooga.

Ament says the idea stemmed from a gazetteer she discovered that contained detailed maps of Tennessee.

“With GPS, we don’t need that book anymore, but I didn’t want to throw it away, and I really love to find novel uses for things I have on hand,” she explained. “I had an idea to make ornament-sized Tennessee shapes with a personalized bit of map from the gazetteer book… The popularity of those proved to me that larger signs depicting Tennessee could do well.”


tennessee wood signs


A native Tennessean, Ament grew up in Marion County and received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Tennessee at Martin. She then moved to Knoxville to complete her master’s in plant pathology and has been a resident of Blount County for more than two decades.

In 2017, she began making and selling stained glass products on Etsy. Eventually her husband, a mechanical engineer, purchased a laser cutter to help score the glass for Ament’s projects.

“He is very familiar with digital drawings and design, and he has a 3D printer of his own, so he bought the laser cutter for me, and with some guidance from him I taught myself how to use it,” she said.

Although the laser cutter can engrave glass, Ament said the tool isn’t the best at scoring the glass for cutting after all. Hence, how she got involved in wood signs.

“The laser cuts and engraves wood pretty quickly,” she said, noting that the majority of the time is spent designing the product on the computer. “The 18-inch Tennessee signs are cut in about 20 minutes, then the pieces are sanded and sealed and glued, so there’s also a bit of hands-on time.”

Ament added that she utilizes a graphics program called Inkscape, which allows her to draw and edit images then saves the drawings in a format called scalable vector graphics (SVG).

“A lot of people concentrate on design, and they sell their SVG files for makers to use,” she said. “I tend to buy some files, collect free files from file sharing websites, and design my own items. I really enjoy mixing and manipulating elements from files I got from different sources to yield a unique product.”

This enables Ament to create a variety of products, such a jewelry boxes, brooches, holiday decorations, picture frames, puzzles and display shelves. She also accepts custom orders.

“The laser cutter is such a versatile tool,” she said. “I can make almost anything from wood or acrylic.”

To view Ament’s offerings, visit etsy.com/shop/AmentArts.

 















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