One person’s pile of discarded planks is someone else’s future fancy pen, fine furniture, wine stopper, soap dish, or anything else imaginable in the right hands.
Tyrell (nicknamed “Pop” and sometimes called “Ty”) Brockington knows this from experience. The woodworker and owner of Crafty Ink Pens once created a pen for his pastor from a pecan tree; he has also made plaques for marathon race winners using teak from the Battleship North Carolina. Then there were urns made out of old tobacco barns, bird baths born of porch spindles, heart pine floors shaped into cutting boards, and tree stumps that became furniture, house numbers, or wooden signs.
When not creating from scratch, the craftsman is repairing and upcycling.
“I once made a weather vane out of an old family heirloom and I’ve replaced rotten corbels of historic homes to meet building codes,” he said.
Brockington, 40, learned all of this at a young age, thanks to Kids Making It, a local nonprofit organization on Castle Street founded by Jimmy Pierce in 1994 with the mission of teaching vocational skills and entrepreneurship to children. Brockington was 14 years old when he entered their afterschool program in 1999.
“I used to stay in Section 8 housing, back in the day. Jimmy Pierce came out to the rec center and gave us information about Kids Making It and then we got to sign up,” he recalled.
Pierce says Brockington was a little taller and older than some of the kids they were teaching, but it was his attitude that made him stand out.
“As soon as Tyrell was finished with his projects, he would ask other kids if they needed help. When you’re working with handsaws and little kids, you have to be careful and it was good to have extra eyes on them,” recalled Pierce, who retired in 2022. “By the time he was 15, I received another grant for the program and asked him if he wanted a job.”
Brockington became Kids Making It’s first paid employee.
“It’s where I learned the fundamentals of woodworking and it also gave me access to the right tools to do the job,” he said.
He learned a hard lesson from his father while there, too, when he made him a pen.
“I kind of rushed and when I gave it to him, he asked ‘how does it feel?’ while running his fingers along the sides. ‘You feel that?’ It was a little rough, so he told me, ‘Whatever you do, take your time and do your best.’ I learned how to do things the right way and never cut corners after that,” he said.
Over the years, he picked up other values, too. “It is so cool to take something ugly and funky to make it something useful. You see a tree log that's rotting that you can turn into a natural edge bowl and sell it. The program shows you can have your own thing. You don't have to take from somebody else,” he said.
Brockington stayed with the program until the age of 28, when he started his own business, working from his shed/laundry room until a sting from a wasp and extreme heat sent him searching for a proper workshop. Channel, a now-defunct business center owned by Live Oak Bank, provided him with funding for tools and the ability to rent a studio from theArtWorks downtown.
The Harrelson Center, another nonprofit, helped out with other logistics, where “Ms. Glenda Tate helped me get my EIN number, helped me write a business plan. She basically mentored me through it all,” said Brockington.
As his business was taking off, there was a setback when he took part-time work at a local company and suffered an on-the-job injury, slicing a tendon in his thumb.
“I felt so bad that I had to put some personal orders on hold—I didn’t want to let people down,” he said. “But I had doctors’ appointments and physical therapy, so I kept everyone informed.”
Being unable to work for 18 months also meant he had to let the lease go at theArtWorks. While healing, a chance meeting with Norm Abram, the host of PBS TV show This Old House led him to posting a photo of them together on LinkedIn, which lead to an offer to work with Filmwerks, a fabrication and production company in Rocky Point.
There he got “awesome professional hands-on experience” doing scenic carpentry, building crates, creating sets for the PGA Golf Tournament and scenery for the World Cup when it was in Qatar.
That job ended in 2024, but as Brockington adapted to different mobility in his thumb, he relaunched his business, rented a larger studio at theArtWorks, and began working as a part-time driver with Kids Making It.
“I pick them up from school, I take them to Kids Making It and I work with them one-on-one, mentoring or doing whatever they need. Being one of the first kids through the program, it feels good to be able to give back, to educate or just be an ear for listening to a kid,” he said.
Pierce credits Brockington as a huge part of the success of Kids Making It.
“He was more instrumental than I was I helping kids stay on the right path in life,” says Pierce. “He was not only good at what he does but also easygoing while teaching kids how to build things. All the kids wanted to be ‘like Pop,’” he said.
Brockington says he can relate to a lot of the children’s living situations. “People tell you, ‘you can't do this, can't do that.’ I give them the hope and encouragement. And they can see me as an example, because I show them ‘if I can do it, you can do it.’”
Visit Tyrell Brockington at theArtWorks, or contact him for commissions via Facebook or Instagram @craftyinkpens
Arts reporting for WHQR is made possible in part by a grant from the Arts Council of Wilmington and The Endowment.
