We recently connected with Winston Henvey and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Winston thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

I have always loved creating. If you ask my parents, even at age 13, you could find me at our dining table until 1 a.m. on any given weekend surrounded by inks, parchment, quills and paint brushes. While I still enjoy drawing with my inks, I wanted to explore more hands-on mediums. My grandfather was a stained glass artist in his free time, with a studio in his back yard. Seeing the things he created, and seeing how my mother carried on the art after my grandfather died, inspired me to learn as well.
In march of 2020, I and my classmates went home from UTA for spring break, and I had a falling out with a friend at the time. As I usually do when I’m not happy with a situation, I channel that energy towards creativity. It was then that I finally asked my mother to teach me how to make a window. I remember the design I chose – these rolling waves, all different shades and textures of blue, green, purple and clear. I was told that it was too hard a design for a first window. Being a stubborn 20-year-old who seldom backs down from a challenge, I made it – or at least tried to make it. Each cut felt wrong, the glass kept cutting into my fingers, and a chorus of profanity could be heard from my parents’ music/art room. I came in the kitchen to wash glass dust and blood from my hands in preparation for dinner. My mom just looked at me and asked, “so how was it?” I told her that I could not wait to continue working on it. I still have the window as a reminder of where I started.
That October, my mother and I were sharing her stained glass tools and table. My mother had gotten her first commission from someone who worked at a local pizza place that we frequented. It was a bat. Because my mother became busy with teaching and putting together a yearbook for her school, she passed the commission onto me. I remember spending several days looking at designs of glass bats and different glass colors/textures, trying to find something that would be worth a commission. Eventually, I made it, got paid, and I realized I could make this a regular thing. From there, I had more commissions coming in – especially around Christmas – and I felt that I had the makings of a solid side business.
Since my interview with Voyage Dallas, I’ve rebranded. No longer Winston Henvey Art, I’ve renamed myself to Invictus Studios. With this rebranding, I aim to expand beyond commissions and build an inventory of whittled items, sun catchers and even some 2-D art in various forms.

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?

My name is Winston Henvey. I am a reporter and an artist based in Plano, Texas. I have been engaging in several forms of art throughout my life from drawing to music, photography, writing, stained glass and wood working, and unofficially launched my business in October 2020 after completing my first commission.
I developed a passion for art at a young age, as my father was a part time musician who played several gigs around the metroplex, including Club Dada, The Tap-In in Grapevine, the Londoner, area country clubs and other establishments. My mother was an avid painter for a number of years and took up stained glass after my grandfather passed away, and she acquired all of is tools and supplies.
They both fostered creativity in me and my sister through a variety of means. Each summer, my sister and I were always excited to go to Hobby Lobby with my mom to get new erasers, sketch books, drawing pencils and paint. In addition to academic exercises and playing outside we’d spend our summer vacation watching drawing tutorials together, comparing the end result or engaging in fun games meant to spark our creativity.
Middle school, while not easy, was pinnacle in sealing my passion for art. I joined the orchestra, finally getting to learn music, and I took an introductory 2-D art class, wanting to get better at drawing. Lisa Hunsaker, Robinson Middle School’s art teacher, was a driving force in fueling my love of drawing during those three years. Being really into fantasy art at the time, I’d take my drawings to her for critique, then go back to my sketchbook, keeping her feedback in mind.
Fast forward to March 2020, I developed an interest in stained glass, seeing my mother create her windows. The colorful glow of the sun hitting a window is so, incredibly stunning, and I wanted to create something that beautiful. I wanted to illuminate a room in a rainbow of color with something I made. As stated earlier, I received my first commission that October, and from there, I advertised myself as an artist who can make custom pieces. More commissions rolled in throughout the holiday season, and I gladly churned out more pieces. A month after my first commission, I was looking for something more.
That is when I found woodworking.
After ordering two speakers that came on pallets for their record player, my parents planned to give the pallet wood away to someone for fire wood. However, before that could happen, I disassembled them and turned them into a worktable for myself to keep in the garage. From there, I began reading online forums and a host of woodworking magazines to learn how to make sturdy birdhouses, small gnome figurines, animals, spoons and more. My uncle, who is an architect by day and artist on the weekends, he fostered my interest for woodworking, giving me one of his books and some pointers on where to begin.
From there, I added wood working to my repertoire and have garnered commissions from local cooks to make personalized spoons.
As of right now, I’m looking to expand my work further and take my business beyond commissions.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I’m still struggling with is perfection and appreciating what I create as-is. This notion is nothing new or specific to me. Everyone deals with a level of perfectionism in a variety of ways. Though, throughout my childhood, and even now, I am quick to get rid of my art or discard it because I see every little imperfection, which in my eyes devalues the entire piece.
When I was in high school, after I tossed page after page in my sketchbook of paintings I had made due to their imperfect nature, my parents reminded my of a line in a song I grew up on: “Little by Little” by Oasis. In the second verse, Noel Gallagher sings, “true perfection has to be imperfect. I know that sounds foolish, but it’s true.” That line, to this day, sticks with me and is a reminder that the imperfections in art are what make it art. There is a beauty to an imperfect, handmade or hand-drawn piece.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There is a poem that has driven me through the toughest times I’ve endured: “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. Each stanza has an inspirational line to offer about being unconquerable by whatever life may throw at you. What speaks to me most are the last lines: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
That poem is the basis of my rebranding. This past summer, I finally reached a stage of burnout between my day job as a reporter and my late nights and weekends dedicated to stained glass and woodworking. I reached a stage where even looking at glass, the prospect of making another window or even taking a knife to a block of wood elicited feelings of shame, guilt and frustration. Summer passed, and I found…not quite a spark but more like dying embers of creativity waiting to once again be fueled and fanned into a roaring flame. I came across that poem again, read it and found the drive to begin creating once more.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nvcts_studios/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winston-henvey-923b4220a/
• Other: email: [email protected]

Image Credits

All product photos by Winston Henvey
Headshot by Heather Hurd