Meet Rob Leifheit | Art Fabricator & Laser Wizard

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rob Leifheit and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rob, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I consider myself a deep hobbyist—starting my business has been my second experience turning a hobby into a career. I started my previous career in the Great Recession, taking an IT job at a bank because the work was available and I loved working with computers. Over the years, though, I realized that it was so much more fulfilling for me to be creative, to make things with my hands.

I started a new IT job at a design agency to start bridging my interests in creativity and technology. Fabricating art became my new hobby, and I started collecting equipment and materials including laser cutters, CNCs, and 3D printers, first in a closet-sized space in my Silver Lake apartment and then in a proper studio where I now run my business today.

Getting laid off from the creative agency during the pandemic was the push I needed to take the plunge into starting my own business fabricating full time. Never knowing for sure exactly when the next gig will come or what it will be made it a challenging transition, but I haven’t taken any of my offers to go back to the agency and just be adjacent to living my dream now that I’ve had this experience of managing my own time without being beholden to the default ways of living when you work for someone else.

What I love most about this path is connecting with so many lovely humans over creating art together. Having the tools, understanding of materials, and the experience experimenting with different processes to be able to meaningfully support people in turning their visions into reality means I get to witness people understanding their own creative potential with every project, and I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend so much of my time.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I started learning how to fabricate in my tiny laundry room, initially learning how to laser cut wood and acrylic to take my digital designs into inlaid wood pieces. My first large art pieces were ambitious LED backlit stained glass windows, each of which easily took 60-100 hours of glass and tech fabrication. These pieces were heavy, fragile, and the wiring left a lot to be desired. I’ve since shifted to using wood and epoxy to make faux stained glass windows and other pieces, which are far less time consuming and allow for greater color control, and better light diffusion. Each piece has allowed me to creatively problem solve and build a foundation of how best to approach building unique LED art, without seeing the actual LEDs or any wiring to preserve the magic of the materials. I really enjoy creating works that leave people wondering how so much light could come from something so small.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
In addition to the countless YouTube creators who have so generously given their time and advice for free on the platform, I’ve been very grateful lately for shared wisdom and design inspiration from my mentor Gregg Fleischman. He’s always pushing the boundaries of ways to engineer his structures without the use of traditional joinery.