Portfolio

The carvings

A selection of pieces. More are being photographed.

Portraits and figures

Faces are what I keep coming back to — carved from a block, or found in a piece of bark.

Saint Patrick, front and side.
Painted character figure.
A figure carved as a Christmas gift, signed and dated.

Wood spirits

Cottonwood bark has a grain that suggests a beard before you have carved anything at all. I follow it.

A wood spirit in bark, with a cottage tucked into the beard.
Wood spirit in bark.
A face found in a log.

Wildlife

Small animals, carved close to life size, usually caught in the middle of doing something.

A mouse, caught mid-nibble.
Chipmunks in a live-edge board — one climbing, one at the hollow.

Chainsaw and outdoor work

Some pieces start with a chainsaw and are finished by hand, and are built to live outside. A battery chainsaw is what made this possible for me — quiet enough, light enough, and no cord.

One of mine stands on London’s Tree Trunk Tour, the city’s trail of sculptures carved from the stumps of trees that had to come down. Mine is Eldon House, carved with Neil Cox, outside the tourist information centre at 696 Wellington Road. A tree trunk takes about four weeks to become a sculpture: almost all of it is chainsaw, and the rest is chisels, rotary tools and sealer.

A bear with a sign — “Hugs 5¢”.

The tools

Gouges, a mallet, and a great deal of sharpening.

Gouges and chips.
The working set.