Today we’d like to introduce you to TRENT BURKETT.
Hi TRENT, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My professional background is in Fine Art. I studied at Sacramento State, my home town for my BA and MA. I also completed an MFA at the University of Minnesota in 2000. Through 2012, I worked my way to Full Professor and Chair for the Department of Art at University of the Pacific in Stockton. We then decided as a family to relocate to the central coast where my wife’s family lives with our two boys Eli and Logan. My wife Megan completed her Masters to become a Nurse Practitioner and I continued my professional art practice exhibiting and teaching privately under my long running business (since 2002), City Art Plant Studio. In 2016 I decided to change the business to CAPS Fabrication and began working as a General Contractor focusing on custom steel, paint, and wood mainly for outdoor living spaces/ landscapes. I needed steadier income and so I leaned on a lifetime experience of working in trades. In 2019, we found our current home and 70 acre ranch in the mountain wilderness behind Lake Lopez / Arroyo Grande. We moved there right before COVID and so during that time I built my current shop from scratch. For the last six years I have continued to complete custom projects for clients, landscape architects, and landscape design and build companies throughout our portion of the central coast/ Nipomo to Paso Robles. I still work as an artist with numerous specialties mainly in the ceramic arts and sculpture. This June I will be building a large kiln and slowly moving back to my roots making and sharing art with the community. Eventually I will build a studio and small gallery and teach privately again. Our new ranch project called Rocky Ridge hopes to encompass my work as a contractor, artist, and family ranch owners. My wife and boys are all involved as well each with their specialties. Megan started a small business making body butter from all natural ingredients. It’s called MB Naturals. She loves to help people manage their health as a NP. We have a small herd of cattle we manage. I planted a 200 tree orchard that is growing, make our own mead and cider, and soon to be making ceramics again. I remain busy as a contractor as well and primarily lean on my arts expertise to present CAPS as a unique business offering custom work much my like artwork. Our tag line is “we don’t build the same thing twice”. My two sons Eli /19 and Logan / 14 are my only “employees”. We do nearly all the work by hand and we plan to stay small as a purely family owned business. We don’t want to sacrifice our focus, craftsmanship, or our direct connection to each client one job at a time.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Absolutely not smooth! It was hard resigning from teaching and that beautiful paycheck, benefits, retirement, and all that security. It was hard making money solely as an artist … but I did and continue to sell works of art here and there to private collectors. It was hard becoming a contractor too. I worked on custom log homes and all manner of building through my undergrad work. I went to get my graduate degrees so that I could leave the trades decades ago. It’s very hard to reinvent oneself. It means leaving things behind …. Mainly comfort and even recognition. I have slowly carved out a name for myself as a builder and an artist on the Central Coast. I literally had to dig ditches at first much like my younger years. But, I have always been willing to get dirty and jump in a ditch because I actually love manual labor and hard work. And, I love learning. I decided to weld by just buying a welder. An older gentleman welder helped me a bit. And that was it…. I was off and running with no classes. The one thing about being an artist is that I am really good at learning processes much like someone learning languages or a musician instruments and music. So anything new like that comes to me very quickly. I’m also a perfectionist and have not much tolerance for being average at things so I drive myself to figure it out asap. So, no it wasn’t easy but I don’t regret leaving teaching and making a new life for myself and family. I would not change a single aspect of that trajectory.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Well I suppose there are not a lot of contractors with three degrees in art of all things. My artwork specializes in ceramics and sculpture and is conceptually focused on process and material as the narrative. This carries over to my work building custom steel structures. My dream quite often is how can I fully merge say a sculpture with a pergola I am building. The problem is that clients don’t always want to pay for either …. Both in art and building. I can make the sculpture of my dreams but that doesn’t mean a thing in terms of selling it. The one thing I never do however is compromise or water down my work. In the beginning of contracting I had to take whatever came my way and I would always make the best of it. But with artwork I don’t ever take orders. You get what you get or I will just hold onto it. I wish I could be that strict in contracting ….. I will get there somehow. What sets me apart is my dedication to creating. I’m always inventing in whatever I choose to do. I do love pleasing clients and creating dream projects. I try to offer insights into their ideas and designs to give them the best outcome for their money. It always centers on craftsmanship, aesthetic appeal, function, and longevity. I am also very old school. I don’t use programs to design. I might very well just do a simple drawing instead. Technology has its place but so does the good old analog approach.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
The central coast is insanely gorgeous…. It’s my favorite part of California which is saying a lot because California is insanely gorgeous everywhere! I’m a native Californian and proud of it. It’s not easy to make it in this state and where we live is very expensive. It’s also not the most diverse here on the coast. I lived in Stockton for 12 years and it’s very diverse which I love. Human diversity drives cultural diversity in a community. That’s not to say there aren’t all kinds of awesome people here, but I do think the cost of living here squeezes out a lot of development in that way. The cool thing working as a contractor is that the trades are very diverse which makes it rewarding. The arts are diverse as well and meeting artists is something I value more than ever.
Pricing:
- I quote jobs individually and they vary quite a bit
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.capsfabrication.com
- Instagram: @caps_fabrication, @visitrockyridge, @mbnaturalag,
