Tuesday – The Master Carver
Apr. 7th, 2009 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
I live in a small town, which makes the small world we all live in even smaller for me.
One of the houses in town, just a few blocks away from my son's daycare, had a large oak tree in the front yard that was damaged by hurricane Ike last September. They hired a woodcarver to make a sculpture out of what was left of the damaged tree, and the local weekly had a write up about the project.
"Have you seen this thing?" Jeff asked me, showing me the paper.
"Nuh-uh. Where is it?"
"On Baker, right across from the nursing home. People are always stopping to watch him work, taking pictures and kind of tying up traffic. It looks like its going to be a mountain lion or something."
I looked at the article. "It's going to be two mountain lions," I said.
A few days later I drove by and saw the work in progress:
When my mother-in-law used to live in western New Mexico I saw a lot of chain saw sculpture out there, mostly of bears. In fact, I would hazard to guess that 9 out of 10 homes in western New Mexico have a chainsaw made bear sculpture somewhere in their front yard (some have several). I hadn't seen any mountain lion sculptures of this sort, though. Since the local high school mascot is a cougar, that probably has a lot to do with why this motif was chosen here.
When I was off work last Thursday I drove by the site again to see that the project was finished. Instead of two mountain lions, there are now three. The original pair planned by the artist had a cub when no one was looking.
There is a crude, folk art quality to these types of sculptures. Carving wood with a chainsaw has to be trying to do brain surgery with a hatchet. That anyone can achieve any sort of fine detail at all with such an unwieldy tool is nothing short of amazing.
I saw where the artist signed his work, and decided to look him up and find out what I could about him, since I'd read that he lives in Pinehurst, like I do.
I wondered if he lives in my subdivision, since it is pretty much the only bona fide subdivision in the community of Pinehurst. There are a few other scattered houses and settlements, but not a lot. I looked up the name "Nathan Smith" on the Internet and came across two with his name in them. One was about the cougar sculpture in Tomball..
The other was about his son, Joel, who was the official first death attributed to hurricane Ike when a tree limb that his father cut in anticipation of the storm landed on him .
The artist lives just of the road from me.
A week or so after the storm a woman from the neighborhood association came by the house to take up a collection for the family to cover the funeral expenses for the boy. A couple weeks later a sign appeared on the neighborhood bulletin board where people generally put their lost dog signs or teenagers advertise babysitting and lawn mowing services. Since he didn't have the names of everyone who contributed to the fund, Mr. Smith posted a general notice of his graditude so everyone going to work or making a run to the grocery store could see it:
It's a funny thing getting to know your neighbor through the newspapers and over the Internet. The media sometimes makes a small world and a small town even smaller, I guess.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
I live in a small town, which makes the small world we all live in even smaller for me.
One of the houses in town, just a few blocks away from my son's daycare, had a large oak tree in the front yard that was damaged by hurricane Ike last September. They hired a woodcarver to make a sculpture out of what was left of the damaged tree, and the local weekly had a write up about the project.
"Have you seen this thing?" Jeff asked me, showing me the paper.
"Nuh-uh. Where is it?"
"On Baker, right across from the nursing home. People are always stopping to watch him work, taking pictures and kind of tying up traffic. It looks like its going to be a mountain lion or something."
I looked at the article. "It's going to be two mountain lions," I said.
A few days later I drove by and saw the work in progress:
When my mother-in-law used to live in western New Mexico I saw a lot of chain saw sculpture out there, mostly of bears. In fact, I would hazard to guess that 9 out of 10 homes in western New Mexico have a chainsaw made bear sculpture somewhere in their front yard (some have several). I hadn't seen any mountain lion sculptures of this sort, though. Since the local high school mascot is a cougar, that probably has a lot to do with why this motif was chosen here.
When I was off work last Thursday I drove by the site again to see that the project was finished. Instead of two mountain lions, there are now three. The original pair planned by the artist had a cub when no one was looking.
There is a crude, folk art quality to these types of sculptures. Carving wood with a chainsaw has to be trying to do brain surgery with a hatchet. That anyone can achieve any sort of fine detail at all with such an unwieldy tool is nothing short of amazing.
I saw where the artist signed his work, and decided to look him up and find out what I could about him, since I'd read that he lives in Pinehurst, like I do.
I wondered if he lives in my subdivision, since it is pretty much the only bona fide subdivision in the community of Pinehurst. There are a few other scattered houses and settlements, but not a lot. I looked up the name "Nathan Smith" on the Internet and came across two with his name in them. One was about the cougar sculpture in Tomball..
The other was about his son, Joel, who was the official first death attributed to hurricane Ike when a tree limb that his father cut in anticipation of the storm landed on him .
The artist lives just of the road from me.
A week or so after the storm a woman from the neighborhood association came by the house to take up a collection for the family to cover the funeral expenses for the boy. A couple weeks later a sign appeared on the neighborhood bulletin board where people generally put their lost dog signs or teenagers advertise babysitting and lawn mowing services. Since he didn't have the names of everyone who contributed to the fund, Mr. Smith posted a general notice of his graditude so everyone going to work or making a run to the grocery store could see it:
It's a funny thing getting to know your neighbor through the newspapers and over the Internet. The media sometimes makes a small world and a small town even smaller, I guess.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 05:07 pm (UTC)There is a festival in WV called the Jackson's Mill Jubilee and they always have a wood carver there. It never ceases to amaze me that someone can use something so huge to create the most detailed work.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 05:53 pm (UTC)The story was sad. I don't think a person ever gets over something like that.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 05:39 pm (UTC)A shame about the boy - that death was totally avoidable.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 06:00 pm (UTC)Most accidental deaths are avoidable. The kid ran across the yard at the wrong moment, even as his older brother tried to grab his shirt and stop him. Blaming the father doesn't accomplish much; what happened, happened. I'm sure it will haunt him and the older brother for the rest of their lives.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 09:58 pm (UTC)He does really good work!! I could never do that, you'd have to chop the whole tree down when I was done. :P
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 03:32 pm (UTC)Yeah, if I tried to make something like that with a chainsaw, the result would be big pile of wood chips and sawdust, not anything resembling a sculpture.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-08 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 02:42 pm (UTC)It wouldn't have occurred to me to do anything like this, though. I'd like to know where they got the idea. :)