Finding Minnesota: Hastings Chainsaw Artist
HASTINGS, Minn. (WCCO) – When severe storms knock over branches and trees, there's an alternative to cutting down and clearing out what's left.
Some homeowners decide to call in an artist.
Hastings endured hurricane-force winds in the overnight hours of June 19, 2012. At the corner of Oak and Forest, Sven Telander looked out his window to see large limbs strewn about the lawn and blocking his driveway.
"Three and a half trees disappeared in that storm for us," he said. "The two pine trees back there, that was kind of a big loss."
What remained next to the driveway was a "half tree," a large silver maple that had been planted when Telander's home was built in the early '50s.
Telander and his wife, Maxine, reached out to Dean Williams of DSW Log Designs to see what he could make out of the tree's twisted remains.
Through weeks of carving and cutting, the Telanders now have a front yard sculpture with wooden images of eagles, owls, deer, fish, a bear, a woodpecker, an otter and a wolf.
"A lot of people have said if they have visitors from out of town, they bring them over here and show them the tree," Telander said.
Williams is a former home builder who had to get creative after being laid off in 2006. He tried his hand at building log furniture, but then was inspired by a chainsaw artist and realized he also had the ability to create characters out of wood.
"It could be from storm damage, it could be from just lying in the woods," he said. "I can just create something out of that piece of wood."
"It was another 'aha' moment," said Williams' wife, Teresa. "Kind of like, 'Wow, he is an artist. My husband is an artist.'"
With his characters as his best marketing tools, Williams drives around town with a wooden moose, pelican and eagle in the bed of his pickup.
He studies the shape and direction of each tree's limbs, to decide which will work for an eagle, or which should become an owl.
He is just starting work on his largest sculpture yet. A large silver maple at the end of his driveway branches off in several directions. By the end of the summer, he intends to have eagles, raccoons, owls, squirrels and gnomes carved into it, to draw people into his business from nearby Highway 61.