What is it like to witness your own success?
Not only up close, but in front of millions of people?
Ike Wynter wrestled with that exact question for the better part of 2025. And even though he’s been through it, he still doesn’t quite have an answer.
This past Thursday, his art was center stage for an audience of 13.6 million people nationwide.
Wynter etched the wooden wall art for the tunnel at the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“Everyone's asking about it. What are you going to do in that moment (when your art is on television),” Wynter said. “And then that moment comes, and you just don't really know what you should feel or how to react.”
While the 32 pieces already had prominence simply by being in the camera shot as the players made their way to the stage to shake Roger Goodell’s hand, his designs gained national attention when Travis Hunter, the No. 2 overall pick, slapped the Jacksonville Jaguars sign on his way to the podium.
Other draftees took Hunter’s example and followed suit, each bounding through the tunnel, but taking a moment to stop at the team logo.
Travis Hunter danced his way to the stage after getting drafted No. 2 overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars???? pic.twitter.com/hnMDWqwuac
— ESPN (@espn) April 25, 2025
“(That) became such a pinnacle moment, and everyone is just erupting about something with your art,” Wynter said. “I was standing next to the NFL creative team at the time, and they were just, we're all losing our minds.”
That celebration was the embodiment of nine years of intense labor and tediously honing his craft. It was the realization of a hobby turned into a passion.
And it all began with a coffee table.
Back in 2016, in a “Pinterest era” where it felt like everyone was embarking on DIY projects, Wynter felt his own creative urge.
The Milwaukee native found a pallet on the side of the road and wanted to turn it into a coffee table.
“I just was very curious one night and said, ‘What does building a coffee table look like?’” Wynter said. “I had never built a piece of furniture in my life. (But) I grew up around hand saws and different things. So the smell and feeling and sensation of cutting wood has always been something that (I’ve known) since I was very young.”
After completing about a dozen coffee tables over the next four months, Wynter discovered a woman on Instagram designing wall art made of wood, and found his trade.
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Mountains were his early speciality. With different shading and designing, Wynter designed over 400 different ranges and peaks.
But his forte grew stale. And after a trip with other creatives in 2021, he knew he needed to expand his repertoire.
“I (had to) make art that is different, that truly is different,” Wynter said.
He took to social media, where he already had gained a decent following, with his next piece, warning his audience it would be different than the mountains he and they had grown comfortable with.
But the response to his next piece, a wave, was overwhelming, and he knew he’d made the right decision to pivot.
Waves bloomed into flowers, which blossomed into a collage of nostalgia, from logos to LEGO, Wynter kept growing both as an artist and in his following.
By 2022, he gained the attention of Mike Tyson and designed a piece for the Mike Tyson Cares Foundation.
In April 2024, Wynter truly broke through.
He designed a 3-foot-tall box of Crayons, where you could actually remove the top and pull individual Crayons out.
“I grew up a kid going to museums and not understanding what I was looking at,” Wynter said. “And I feel like a lot of society does that, and I want to somewhat change the dynamic or the conversation around that, because I don't understand abstract art or modern art, but if you turn the corner at a museum and saw a giant Crayola box made out of wood, I think the average person would be like, that's pretty cool.”
The Milwaukee community certainly agreed.
Wynter’s videos featuring the “world’s largest wooden Crayon box” gained over one million views across his social platforms, and captured the attention of the Brewers, who asked Wynter to create a piece to honor the 50th anniversary of Hall-of-Famer Robin Yount’s MLB Debut.
Since then, he has crafted pieces for the Milwaukee Bucks, NHL, New York Stock Exchange and even a Power Ranger.
Perhaps the most notable part is that every creation is made of junk, all thrown out pieces of wooden furniture in dumpsters and on the side of the road.
Plus, none of it is colored or varnished.
“The whole goal was like, ‘Don't go to the store to make art,’” Wynter said. “I'm not an artsy kid. I was never an artist growing up. ... (But) I enjoy cutting wood.”
Within just a few months of creating the box of Crayons, Wynter constructed compositions for MLB, NHL and the NBA.
All that was left was the NFL, which was coming to Green Bay for the 2025 NFL Draft.
Like the other three leagues, Wynter didn’t approach the shield. The league came to him, somewhat innocuously.
“The NFL literally just hit me with an email,” Wynter said, “and said, ‘We have an idea for you and your art specifically. Can you pull this off?’”
It would be a massive project, but in short, “no” wasn’t an option.
“We have one life,” Wynter said. “If you're not putting your best foot forward every day to do what you can, you know ... All the loose ends of what-ifs were never there. They weren't. ... That's not how I live.”
The email from the NFL came on Dec. 30, and from then until mid-February, he and the league strategized how to bring this project to life. During that time, Wynter began gathering material, and lots of it.
“I was like, ‘Well, if this contract doesn't come through, I'm just gonna have a ton of furniture sitting in my warehouse,’” Wynter said.
And for good reason.
This was actually the first project where Wynter had to conduct public outreach to acquire everything necessary. Normally, dumpster diving in alleys and finding wood on the side of the road would suffice.
But not for the scale of this undertaking.
Wynter received the green light on Feb. 13 and got to work, starting the New England Patriots’ logo that night.
Over the course of the next two months, Wynter spent over 700 hours delicately crafting 32 team logos to line the hallway from the green room to the NFL Draft stage, and every piece of wood used came solely from dressers and entertainment centers.
One entertainment center, which Wynter procured from a family friend, was used in nearly a dozen of the logos.
The result was a smashing success.
The future of the 32 logos is to be determined. They’re the property of the NFL now, and the league hasn't kept Wynter aware of its plans.
Will they be auctioned off by the league itself? Or the 32 teams individually? That hasn’t been decided. Though Wynter would like to keep the story going, and have each of the first-rounders sign the logos.
Wynter’s own future plans are to be determined.
There have been some discussions with different parties, but nothing finalized. And that’s perfectly fine with him.
“That's the beauty of it,” Wynter said. “(I’ll) hopefully wake up tomorrow and keep cutting wood. ... None of my art sold on Thursday night that's on my website, and I'm 100% OK with that. I'm not here to sell art, or to make a lot of money, those are not what I'm inspired by in life.
“I'm a kid from Milwaukee who picked up a dresser on the side of the road one day and cut it into some pieces. I hope it just inspires people. That's all I care about, like, not even to be an artist, but just to be the best version of yourself every day. So that's all I care about.”
So where is that coffee table that started it all?
“I still have it to this day,” Wynter said. “It's not very sturdy, but it's still standing.”
Matt Liberman is a video producer and reporter for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.