Like many other creatives, Wright first came to Nashville in 1996 for work in the music industry. A Christian music songwriter, she spent time as a radio promoter while writing for Myrrh Records, a division of Word Records. But it wasn’t exactly steady money.
She connected with the wife of someone she knew at Caleb Radio Networks, who happened to be a faux finisher in town. She asked Wright if she might be interested in trying it out.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” she said. “She put a trowel in my hand, a brush in the other, and my first project was working with her and Sally Anderson on the Governor’s Mansion. And the rest is history.”
In 2003, she branched out on her own with Wright Decorative Finishes.
“I decided to spread my wings and not do anything else, just hustle,” Wright said. “And it was hard that first year.” But she kept up the hustle, training in various skills and going to plaster clinics. She became the best at what she did.
Faux finishing has had its ups and downs in popularity. By 2016, it had really dropped in demand, along with Wright’s steady work. Then, in 2017, her mom, Betty Jo, died of cancer. It was tough, but Wright found enjoyment in working with fragrances. She made a pivot to candles, naming her first line Jo/Ry after her mother and then-mother-in-law. But it wasn’t an immediate success.
“Nobody cared about Jo/Ry because it did not have a story,” she said.
She began a total rebrand at the end of 2019, inspired by old photographs her grandfather Frank took of his experience laying pipeline in South America in 1938. His stunning images of candid moments, including cowgirls with guns wearing satin dresses, inspired the brand name Iron.
You will find some of those imaged on the labels of her candles, pairing photography with fragrance to create a storied experience through scent, imagery, and memory. That personal touch is what sets her products apart and is a true legacy of her own family history. That, and the fact that everything is truly done by hand, from measuring the fragrance and wax to pairing the right image with the right scent.
Most recently, people can upload their own photos to the website to create truly custom candles.
“It’s labor, but it’s fun,” she said. “And you get to craft a really couture product that inspires people and touches people.”
Iron Collective became another outlet for Wright’s creativity. Despite COVID hitting a few months later, a series of bright moments — a viral Instagram post, a store taking a chance on her — made the rebrand a success.
“You have to keep pushing,” she said. “Even though it seems really small, you have to keep going.”
Now, she is has her work in dozens of stores in 18 states. She has many regular customers. Iron Collective candles have become a favorite among the design community, too. In 2025, she created the official candles for the Parade of Homes tour and commemorative candles for guests of the Nashville Interiors 25th Anniversary dinner.
“It is scientifically proven that smell enhances mood,” Wright said. “It alters your brain state in a subconscious way. And I feel like it’s so important to have a space that smells as good as it makes you feel. Your space should smell the way it makes you feel.”
Now, as cycles tend to do, what was down is back up again, and designers are turning to Wright once more for her decorative finishing skills. For example, she is working with designer Chad James to make every door on one of his projects appear wood-grained.
“I actually sampled from a door that was 250 years old and had the original country graining the gentleman did in 1850 at the top of the door. We’re changing it into this beautiful chestnut finish,” she said. Country graining is a decorative painting technique. “That’s the stuff I love.”
Each project is different, but Wright’s process of working with designers always involves creating samples based on the design and materials, then adding and adjusting as needed. With more than 20 years of experience, many times she has often educated designers on what exactly is available to them to incorporate into their work, many of them entering the field long after the last faux-bubble crash.
“A lot of them have zero clue what finishes are out there,” she said. “I do everything from glazing, washing, replicating murals, plaster — everything in the world of faux.”
Lately, Wright has been leaning into plaster applications, which are having a true design moment. She recently completed a plaster application directly on the fronts of Sub-Zero appliances for Tisdel Distributing in the Cenwood showroom.
“These finishes that were so classic are coming back in a big way,” she said.
Through it all, Wright embraces being humbled by a series of great losses, the personal growth that came from it, and the relationship she has built with God, and with herself, on the other side of ego.
“We’re all broken, but if you let those weak spots heal, the chipped beautiful cup you will be can still hold liquid,” she said. “And when you lose a parent, it’s like you lose an anchor in your life, and it does shift you. It changes you. Not to get too philosophical, but death is not an option. It’s what keeps us humble, and keeps us realizing that we’re here for a purpose.”
