We were lucky to catch up with Cody Eichelberger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cody, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

The most common question I—or most artists— get, is “How did you learn to do this?” and I never have an answer that I think quite satisfies anybody. There are simple answers to give—youtube, books, friends, other artists etc., but the common thread is curiosity. We live in an age where anyone can learn anything that they seek out—the knowledge is there for all who journey to find it. Question and wonder about anything you see. For example, I’d love to learn to make stained glass at some point. I’ll watch a video and wonder what tools are they using, where do they get their materials, how do they cut individual, separate glass pieces to fit together perfectly? If the initial investment isn’t much for basic supplies, I may try. The mistakes or difficult parts that arise when I try form my next line of questioning. “whats the best way to flip the piece to solder the backside without breaking it” “What kind of solder is best” “What is the best way to cut curves in glass” —all mistakes I’ve made or considered could come up. These tips and tricks snowball and grow into a personal knowledge base. Only through failure and success do you build the skills and confidence that you strive for. No one can get things perfect or be truly satisfied the first go at anything and it is unreasonable to expect it in yourself or in others—the journey getting closer is how you develop as an artist.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Florida raised, New York based artist working and living here since 2011. I am currently living in the Hudson Valley since Hurricane Ida decided it was time for my family and I to leave NYC ahead of schedule. I owe the sparks to my artistic pursuits to my boomer hippie Mom that always made art herself and encouraged me to draw and paint growing up. I took AP art in high school, but the grueling demands to simply produce turned me off for many years until I moved to NYC post college with some friends and found myself in the epicenter of culture far flung from the culture desert that was Southwest Florida. I felt a new birth and began painting again, taking photos, drawing in a little book on the subway or at work, anywhere I had a free moment.
Years later, my friend gifted me a very old mirror that was unlike any I had seen— an arch with the cutout the shape of the state of arizona, with a cactus, a sun and sky. Completely unique and made something so common so extraordinary. It clearly stuck in my mind, because years later the apartment we rented had some random spare wood and I wanted to make a mushroom silhouette cutout to hang on the wall. I got the tools and made something very crude that broke, I repaired and hung up. Seeing the plain white wall through the silhouette bored me so I decided to try to make it a mirror and after many goodwill-sourced panes shattered to no avail, I decided glass, perhaps was not for me and stuck to painting.
Fast forward a few years, I find myself living at a new place with garage space and an ancient workbench, and after we did some renovation, I found myself with a pile of spare wood scraps from the walls we ripped down. My poverty mentality growing up with a single mom has never and will never leave, so I could not simply toss out good material. I got some glue and clamps and began making side table tops with groovy, funky shapes that I didn’t find amongst most new furniture. After the first, something clicked and one table out of the pile of scraps tuned into 15 piled up in our gutted basement. With nowhere to go, I listed some on Facebook marketplace, Etsy and my socials to friends and then one sold, then another, and another, and my brain lit up to try to fund these renovations with the old guts form the room we just tore out. One man’s trash is another’s treasure. I find myself a few months into my new woodworking escapade and I decided to try another mirror, except this time, the glass did not shatter or crack. I placed the frame over that piece of glass—a flower I carved growing out of the bottom of the frame, and I fell in love.

To date, I have made over 1000 mirrors, 75 lamps and 40 tables and show no signs of slowing down. I make mostly organic, wavy, abstract single piece construction wood frame mirrors as small as a few inches to as large as 4×5 feet large. I have heavy Mid Century influence born out of boredom of a lot of contemporary design. I seldom see carved frame mirrors out in the wild or for sale new aside from the occasional bean or wavy shape. I find that my flower, desert, mushroom and scenic designs are not seen much in others’ mirror work and people seeking out something with that vintage or bohemian feel will find comfort in my wares.

I am most proud of building up a following of people that regularly seek out my work and come back time and time again. It never stops feeling humbling and flattering when people reach out by word of mouth and sharing the love of what I make.

I am always looking for an opportunity to make more because the joy I get from seeing my work on someones wall is akin to seeing your words or drawing in print—it feels completely real and surreal when abstracted out of your own workshop. For those interested in my work, they need only know they directly support a growing family and I am always dedicated to making the customer happy to ensure they get something unique they won’t find anywhere else.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

It may sound a little redundant to say, but the best way to support artists and create a healthy ecosystem is to do just that—when you need something for your home, business, gifts, projects—seek out local creatives. Support small shops and ventures from the community or beyond—anything other than letting large corporations suck up all the opportunity. People have a choice—put money directly into the pockets of real people and families they can see with their own eyes by supporting their crafts, or buy cheap from a faceless corporation that has no connection to your town. You’ll never see the smiling face of gratitude for your support from Amazon or others like you do when you meet and talk to the real people that work hard doing what they love to do. You won’t feel passion from Walmart or Wayfair.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is seeing something you’ve born out of thin air come to life from an idea to something tangible you can see and experience. Getting the reaction from customers and fans alike is a testament that I am heading in the right direction and while I shouldn’t focus too much on following others taste as an artist, it tells me that my instincts and guts are to be trusted, and I should keep my head down and keep moving.

Contact Info:

• Website: codyaspen.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/codyaspenart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/profile/100000087697032