Out of Office: Michael Hatfield

[My wife Carissa and I] started with vinyl cutting just for gifts … then we graduated to more woodworking. I would do just framed artwork, and we would use some of her vinyl cutting with the woodworking that I was doing.

My grandpa ended up gifting his grandkids his custom-cut wood art. Growing up, I really appreciated it, but as a child, you only appreciate so much. As an adult, looking back at all of the art that my grandpa was able to cut out for all of his grandkids was impressive.

About 2017, [Carissa and I] officially started making things together. We made a Facebook page [for Hatfield Handmade], and then we eventually developed our website. But we ended up working with customers who would reach out to us and say, “Hey, we’ve heard you do [woodwork]. Can you make some custom stuff for us?”

My favorite part of our whole venture was the times that we were able to have these [woodworking] workshops. We partnered with a local business here in Minot. That’s probably my favorite part of what we’ve done: being able to connect with people and seeing their artistic ability come out … and making it their own. Being able to have an active conversation with somebody while doing it, there’s just a human connection there that I really grew to appreciate very quickly.