Local News from Across the Rainy River District

Fort Frances resident Ryan Daw does precision laser engraving on surfaces like tile, wood, or metal. He says he has about 45 pieces of work on display at the Fine Line Art Gallery.

“People like to think of me as an artist, I like to think of myself as more of an engineer,” he says.

The 36-year-old says he has been doing engraving for about a year.

“I’ve just been experimenting,” he says. “It took me about six months to get any good at it.”

When Daw first began, he says the experimenting phase was cost effective since he had lots of scrap wood available, and tiles were cheap.

“It wasn’t a problem to just go back to the drawing board and see what worked and what didn’t,” says Daw.

He says it was 3D printing that got him interested in engraving.

“I bought a 3D printer for making replacement parts for stuff,” he says. “And then as soon as I got ahold of it, I was like, ‘this would be really cool if there was a laser on it.’ And then I started looking it up and I was like, ‘yep, there are lasers on these things.’”

Daw says the image is drafted through various programs and then pushed out on a machine and laser engraved. He says some laser-engraving machines can cost $10,000.

His pieces are usually animals, but Daw has done all sorts of other things as well.

“Really, anything your imagination can come up with,” he says. “I do lots of different stuff.”

He can do multiple-layer perspective engravings. Some of his pieces are 12 layers thick, with lots of dynamic range. They’re stacked on top of each other in a mosaic-type fashion. Some of his favourite projects have included multicolour tiling, backsplashes, and any type of custom work. Daw says he quite enjoys doing personal portraits.

“My favourite part has just been seeing people’s reactions,” he says.

Though these art pieces aren’t paying his bills right now, Daw says it may be a possibility in the future.

“I wouldn’t mind starting a full-time business sometime in the future,” he says. “I do think that there is a market for this, and there’s people that want to consume that and have images of their loved ones in tile or some kind of object forever.”