(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."

My name is Rob Sharky.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

Isn't it cool when people can do artist type stuff?

It's something I've never been able to do.

So when I get a chance to talk to a true artist, I definitely jump at it.

Today we're gonna be talking with Nicholas Burke from McLeansboro, Illinois.

How you doing Nicholas?

- Fantastic, Rob.

- How are you?

- You're an artist.

- People say that.

- Okay, I mean, do, are you okay with that?

- I'm learning to just accept that, that's something that people call me now.

It was never something I wanted to call myself.

- Yeah.

Because honestly, when Emily said who we were gonna interview, I'm like, well, he's a blacksmith.

And then as we were looking at what you do, what you create, I'm like, maybe fabricator, I don't know.

So I could see where people would almost be confused because yeah.

- Throughout my life it was, it went kind of construction worker- - Yeah.

- to welder, to fabricator, to kind of making pretty things, and gone from there.

(Rob laughing) - All right, where'd this come from?

Have you always been a creative person?

- I would say I have been.

Growing up, it always seemed like my sister was like the artist in our family, and I was more like a science, math kid.

And then as things went, I just kind of developed my own style and just incorporated it into things that I called my work.

- Really?

Because, I don't know, thinking stereotypes, you know, the math brain and the art brain, you think are two separates, but here you are, you're good at both.

- It works very well when my style is incorporating nature shapes and forms where a lot of nature things all have some math element to it, so it really helps.

They go very well together.

- Honestly, it's not fair.

(chuckles) I mean, if you're gonna be a good artist, you can't be good at math too.

You're making the rest of us look bad.

You either pick one or the other.

- I'm sorry.

(laughing) - Well, how'd you learn like to manipulate, not just wood, and metal, and all that?

Tell me the background of it.

- Well, my dad had a shop and whenever I was growing up, he went to where he was selling steel at the time, but we still had our welding shop.

So a lot of my upbringing was we went to the shop to work and fix things, and whatever needed repaired and stiffen things up.

And then my uncle had a construction business, so whenever I turned 16 and had a vehicle, I was able to go work in the summers with him, and work over spring break type things, and work steel frame construction.

So really just from there, a lot of my life was construction work, and going, I went to Rend Lake College and I worked construction while I was in college.

And just kind of developed from being around that type of stuff.

- So growing up as a farm kid, you know, it was just second nature.

You kinda learn how to manipulate metal.

- Definitely.

- By just heating up, or welding, or whatever.

So this was just kind of your childhood and you would pick things up?

- Definitely.

And a lot of things with repairs, it's like you already have your thing that you're repairing, your base material that, you know, you're trying to patch or reinforce.

So it went from things like that and maybe making scrap art to then just having steel that was fresh from the shop, and being able to shape it and form it in any way that I.

So it went from like using scrap pieces to then going to like fresh metal that could be anything that I wanted it to be.

So it really opened up from there.

- So do you do much of the, what people think of the, you know, the guy and the hammer?

Do you do much of that?

- So it's, you learn these techniques and in all these different things that I do, and make, and fix, you might have learned this technique to make a metal a specific way, put a certain edge to it that you might only use one time on the thing.

But then it's like when you need that technique.

So I incorporate all different techniques that I figure out.

And a lot of the times I figure out I've been doing something completely wrong for years and years, and somebody shows you the right way to do it, and you're like, oh my gosh.

You know, it changes then how you approach things from then on.

- Says here you went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

I've probably been speaking too fast for you, haven't I?

- Oh (chuckles) from being down that far south?

- I'm joking.

(chuckles) My wife and I want there too, so we can joke about it, right?

- Yeah.

- I mean our mascot was the Egyptian racing dog.

I mean, who has that?

But yeah, anyway, what was your degree in?

- So it was communications, advertising, marketing.

It was a journalism degree, essentially.

- Okay, it has nothing to do with what you're doing now.

- I, so in going to school, and my mom jokes with me about what I actually learned in school because I would say the stuff that I learned in college was not in the classroom as much as, I worked at the Daily Egyptian newspaper there so.

- Yes.

- And I was the design chief, worked my way up to that.

And I learned, it was like I would go to school and sometimes go to class, but I always made sure that I was there for work because that was what was really important.

And I learned a lot about design and just, even though you're working with words, fitting them in this space, it's really not that different than working with shapes and design.

Like designing words on a page is just as artful as, you know, anything like a graphic designer or something like that.

- Actually, I don't think so.

In my mind, I don't think so.

So it kind of, it tells me like how your, I don't know, I'm assuming how your mind works.

You're able to see that a lot differently, which is, I mean, obviously a gift.

You probably didn't even realize that.

- Well, it took learning things from people above me, and then you look at other certain newspapers, and the way that they let words break in paragraphs, and it doesn't help your eyes as you read it.

And it's like, wow, they, I really learned a lot from all these people.

- Really?

- Oh, yeah.

- Literally, I was like, where's the comic section?

I would've never thought about that.

I mean, I guess that's why we need different minds in this world.

So I, like I said, I think what you have is a true gift.

And obviously we're gonna get into some of the things that you've done.

So you graduate, did you go right into what you're doing now?

- Went right into it, yeah.

So there's a gentleman named Doug Stringer in McLeansboro, and he worked through NASCAR, through sponsorships with Great Clips.

And so he hired me right from college and from 2014 to 2019, I worked with him.

And we went from NASCAR dirt track racing into, he bought an NHRA team, top field dragster.

So it was an opportunity that, I mean, I say should have never happened to someone coming out of college, but to be in the position for a new team happening where I got to be the creative mind behind the designs of the uniforms, and the dragster, and the materials, and a lot of the promotional type things that just, all this knowledge that I had learned from school, I'm just like thrust into.

- Which, I mean, there's a lot into that, right?

- Oh my gosh, yeah.

- I mean the car has to look cool.

- Has to look cool.

So what I realize, and this is just through dealing with B2Bs, like business-to-business or sponsors, so it's, even though the car looking cool is important to all these people, their logo is the most important part.

So you're constantly struggling with a really cool design, but their logo, whether it look really awesome or really bad, has to fit in that space, and look cohesive with everything.

- Yeah, I never really thought about it.

But I mean, how do you make this car that looks just so badass and just looks like, you know, absolute horsepower on wheels, and make that look good with a Great Clips advertisement?

It's like you're taking the most monstrous horsepower, everything's all manly, and it's sponsored by the world's worst haircut.

- Definitely, so yeah.

- Yeah.

- Fortunately for me, a lot of these larger corporations had branding guidelines where they like, and they would make sure that you use the certain colors that everything was certain spaced.

And their branding guidelines really helped me push along.

It was like an ebb and flow of their style and what we thought would look cool.

- I apologize if you work at Great Clips.

(chuckles) Not really, but here we are.

Okay, let's jump into your art.

How did this all start?

I mean, what, you say, all right, I'm gonna go into this.

How do you monetize it?

I mean, all these questions probably had to be going through your head.

- Definitely.

And growing, it's funny, looking back on me as a young kid, I would always be at the shop.

It was like my place that I would go hang out.

Living with your parents, you know, you want to have your own space.

So I'd go to the shop and I would always think in my head of like, I would love to have this.

I would love to have a shop, something.

And dad, from owning a shop, really reinforced within me how hard it is to have a working shop.

And so I never wanted it to be like a shop, shop where I had to be employing people, and having to just keep teams of people and jobs.

So it's crazy looking at it now that I'm finally doing this thing of having clients, and being able to spend my time in there, and enjoying myself.

- Well, what did you, did you want your shop to be like, all right, this is my space, everybody stay away?

- I really, I just knew that I really loved spending time in there and working.

And it was, I wanted to figure out, I guess my niche of what I could do.

And so it started out, I was making fire pits for a while, and this is while I worked with the race team.

And so I'd be making these fire pits, word of mouth.

We got a CNC in there then, and I started making signage for people.

- Not everybody knows what a CNC is.

- Computerized numerical cutting, I think.

- It's a computer cutting machine.

- Computer cutting machine, yes.

And so starting out, I only use an oxygen-acetylene torch.

And I mean, the day that we got a plasma torch, my life changed.

- Oh my gosh.

I'll never forget that day on my farm.

I'm like, seriously?

Why have we been screwing around with a torch the whole time?

- Definitely.

- But I mean, taking that to the CNC that had to probably be like the same jump, right?

- Definitely.

And so buying a CNC machine, you think, oh, this is fantastic.

I'll just cut out whatever I want.

Well, it's, you have to have the computer skills.

And fortunately, being a designer for so many years, that just went hand in hand with this computerized cutter.

So I was able to get the things outta my head onto this machine.

But started out making mostly signs for people, small things, you know, last names and.

- Welcome to the Smiths.

- Definitely, yes.

- People love that.

- Definitely.

- Yeah.

- It's nice to, you know, have your own whenever you like, you as a, say you're my customer, and you spend so much time on your cabin, or your barn, and it's nice to have that finishing touch with your name on it.

- Yeah.

- Just to- - Yeah.

- you know, let people know that, hey, this is me.

- So like this piece, this is a bottle opener.

- Yeah, that's just, I mean, it's just a simple bottle opener.

I worked around with a lot of different shapes and styles, and it really just formed into, I love double helix.

It's just another nature shape.

It's kind of has an infinity symbol blended in there.

With different symbols there's- - How do you see all that?

I can see it now that you say it, but.

- So with a lot of things it just takes playing around.

And I knew kind of where I wanted it to end up, but it only took shape and form after I made maybe 50 of 'em, and then it became what it was.

- So I'm assuming you use a CNC to cut this out and then manipulated- - Correct.

- the 3D into it?

- Definitely.

- Okay.

- And- - I'm kind of seeing like a double helix and almost like an infinity symbol.

- Oh yeah.

- That's, I mean, that's how I'm seeing it.

- That's pretty good.

- Well, really?

- Yeah.

- Thank you, yeah.

(laughing) I mean, that's really cool.

I mean, this would take me a week to do and I, it would not look like this, it would look like a Helix the cat, basically.

But I'm sure you probably did this in not, 10 minutes?

- Well, whenever I'm making things, it's really hard to.

It's like you're making a batch of cookies, and somebody asks you how long it took to make the individual cookie, you know.

You're like, well, I made a hundred of 'em so I can tell you it took me a week to- - So basically that was a jerk question?

- Oh no, it's just thinking about.

I used to make one off things and then you make so many things one time.

- Yeah.

- And you say, I'm never making one of another thing.

I'm at least making 10 and maybe as many as I can make in a single day.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So the metal, let's bring up the wood here, because this is, to me, is just gorgeous.

How do you do that on wood?

- So CNC again comes through.

And I had the idea of, I wanted to make.

And I work with, I'll say, like stereotypical cliche things like Illinois.

Yeah, Illinois.

- Oh, that's what this is.

- We live here.

But then I wanted to have my own personal kind of emotions and feelings put into it, which you can see.

So I live in McLeansboro, Illinois, which is in the southern part of Illinois.

And it's kind of, a lot of people leave McLeansboro and disperse out and a lot of people come back.

So it's just kind of just how I feel about, you know, you can hear people hating on Illinois all day, but I don't feel that way.

You know, I might have things that I don't like, but it's like still home.

And that's just what that represents to me.

- Let's see.

Again, I just think it's really pretty and cool, but then when you hear the backstory of like what the artist is trying to do, it makes, well, it kind of makes me feel dumb.

(laughing) - Well, a lot of times, you know, art is up to anybody's interpretation.

And you can think it's cool or not cool, or emotional or not, and connects in ways.

- How, what's a, is this the up or this?

Or is it?

- However, I mean, I've got the morel there.

Yeah, that's perfect.

- Oh, you do, don't you?

You got.

Is that a real one?

- That's a real morel, yes.

- Okay.

- So, fortunately I'm, I don't know when this will air, but mushroom season, by the time I see this on TV, I might be out in the forest mushroom hunting as well.

- No, actually, we don't talk about morels on this show.

- Oh okay.

- I hate them 'cause I can never find them.

- Well if you- - I don't know how people like you do it.

You go out there, oh, they're, same place every year.

They're not.

I don't know- - If you went last year, they were hardly any to be found.

So hopefully this year.

- That's me every year, literally.

We go out shed hunting, that's kind of our thing, and we're pretty good at that.

Everybody's like, oh, look how many mushrooms I found on our shed hunting.

We've never found any, any, none.

It's probably 'cause you're taking 'em all.

- Well, you gotta know the secret spots as well.

- How's that look?

'Cause people can't tell, but it's completely flat.

How's it look 3D?

- So it's CNCed with a 90 degree V-bit, which kind of gives it that depth to it.

And then I backfill it with a clear epoxy so that it doesn't take away from the wood grain, which I use black walnut and sand.

It's funny because it, the same way with metalworking, the cutting and the welding is the quickest part.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- The grinding and the sanding is like 80% of anything that you're doing.

So a lot of my work, I'm just sanding and grinding, and sanding and grinding, and that's what really makes that pop.

And I wanted to incorporate the morel.

- Now, once again, this is flat, but it looks 3D.

- Oh yeah.

- How did you do that?

- Yeah.

- I didn't understand much of what you just said, but it's beautiful.

It is absolutely beautiful.

And I love the little morel there at the bottom.

- And again, that's just, I, yeah, it's a charcuterie board that you put your cheeses and meats on and.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

Stereotypical cliche charcuterie board.

But I wanted to put a little bit of myself in it so.

Do you, it's really- - Putting the morels.

- You wanna know something that's really fun?

It's very nice, but several people send us a charcuterie board that's in a shape of a shark, and sharcuterie.

And we appreciate that.

But I think we've got like six of 'em now, so.

But yes, that is, that's beautiful.

- Thank you, thank you.

- All right, so let's talk about monetizing it.

I mean, this stuff is worth money.

Sometimes, I don't know you, I don't know your story, but sometimes artists have a tough time looking at what they do as an artistry, as a business, and they don't wanna sell their stuff, or they ask for a way too low of price.

How'd you figure it all out?

- Really, it came through with a friend of my sister's.

Whenever I was at the shop, he came by and he saw a fire pit I was making.

He lived in Florida, but he was really interested.

And I'm thinking, you know, I'm usually making these and almost giving them away to people.

- Yeah.

- And so it's, but then I was trying to give him the best deal I could and he really sat me down, and he said, "Hey, I'm not trying to get a deal.

I'm trying to pay what it's worth."

And so that just completely changed my mindset of, and not that everybody was gonna treat me like he was, but it put it in my head that, you know, I really, I shouldn't just be working for under minimum wage, spending all my time and that I could do it kind of as a legitimate business and, you know, charge tax on things and.

But from then on, really it just, I say, just started increasing my prices.

But, you know, you look online and you see what's around and what's similar to what you're doing, and really opened my eyes to, not that I'm making a fortune in McLeansboro doing this, but I can make enough that I can sustain my lifestyle there.

So it's been great.

Going from starting at though, Cedarhurst Craft Fair, Art and Craft Fair in Mount Vernon, Illinois, that was my first real show that I had ever went to.

And the first year I just went and it really gave me a good gauge on kind of what people are interested in, and what can sell, and what can't.

And I realized from the first year to the second year, I had it in my mind that I needed to make these things that I thought people would want or people would like.

- That helps.

- It helps, yeah.

But then to a degree I was, I felt that I was really catering too much to my potential consumer, and I wasn't putting enough of myself.

So the second year I made just, I didn't, I just made what I wanted to make.

- Yeah.

Well, and you were, first exhibit is 2001 Best of Show in 2021.

- Correct, yeah.

- How do you win a craft fair?

Is there, like, combat involved?

- It, I, it was not anything I was expecting.

It was.

So it's judged by, they select an artist, and they go around to every booth, and they have some form of, you know, one to five I'm sure in their head, and- - No jousting?

- No jousting, no.

They talked about maybe having hand-to-hand combat.

- I mean, honestly it would only be fair.

- Yeah.

- Like, you know, two guys enter, one leaves.

- Definitely.

- That type of thing.

- You could use your weapon.

- Yeah.

(laughing) Your art, yeah.

- In all seriousness, that had to, I mean, it has to be an upper, right?

That has to make you feel good- - Oh my gosh.

- that other people think that what you're doing is incredible.

- It, as I say it blew my mind in just a way of you go, or.

I look around at this fair, and I'm seeing all these amazing artists, and all their things, and.

So I was just hoping to get Best of Metal that day.

And being awarded Best of Show, just, I mean, I can't even speak on how amazing I guess it felt.

But then it really, it legitimized I guess my own thoughts of myself on wondering whether I'm doing the right thing or not.

- Yeah, I could see that.

If people want to find you and find your stuff, where do they go?

- carbonforgeddesign.com.

- Carbon, is there a story behind that?

- Coming from an advertising background, I don't want some, like, name that doesn't, I guess connect with my brand.

So keep it short and simple as carbon for the metal, forge and design, it's the things that I do.

And I thought it, it just stuck.

I had a list of all these different names.

I'm like, this is the one.

- Did you ever thought better than Great Clips design?

- Better, yes, yeah.

- Never thought of that, huh?

(laughing) - Heck no.

- What's your best selling item?

- Well, I made a lot of yard plants, kind of garden things that were made out of steel that would rust and patina.

Those all sold out at the craft fair.

I make a lot of fire pits.

- [Rob] Which are gorgeous by the way.

- Thank you, thank you.

Here upcoming, I have my first ever solo art show in Mount Vernon at Cedarhurst.

And so for that I'm going to be producing some nice in tables, console tables.

I'm really trying to work together with having the wood and the metal come together in a nice marriage.

- Are you up for people contacting you and say, hey, I want something like this, kind of like a one item.

- Definitely.

- They can do that?

- They can do that.

And where I'm at now, being a one-man operation is, I'm probably booked out till September currently, so.

- [Rob] Well, you're good.

That's- - Well- - [Rob] People gotta wait for it.

- I'm just slow in one man maybe.

But so I'm open to any request and it's really hard for me to get to everything that is requested.

I'm trying more to take on jobs that I can work a full week doing.

Not something that would necessarily take half of a day to do.

- Yeah, I could see that.

What if I wanted a full scale of the Eiffel Tower made out of 3/4 inch bolts?

- I could probably do that if you would provide the bolts.

(laughing) - Okay, I'm not sure I wanna see the bell on that one, but hey.

Nicholas Burke from McLeansboro, Illinois.

Go check out his website, go check out all the cool stuff that you're doing.

Amazing.

The mind of an artist and to see your talent, obviously for other people and myself, it's a treat.

So I appreciate you coming on.

- Thank you.

- And giving us a little bit of insight.

And yeah, keep doing what you're doing.

Congratulations on all of your success.

- Thank you very much.

- Nicholas Burke, thank you very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

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