CARVING

IT ALL STARTED sometime in July 2000. Bill Cooke found out about a 120-plus-year old cottonwood tree that was available for a sculpture in Reno, Nevada. The local art council was looking for sculptors and ideas. Bill told me about it and said we should put in a proposal to carve it. He checked out the tree, took a couple photos and sent them to me. We talked and came up with an idea. The art council liked our proposal and we won the job.

This was a big tree! Its smallest girth at the base was 28 feet. About 9 feet up, it split into four branches. The tallest one was 26 to 27 feet, and the other three were in the 20- to 22-foot range. When I first saw the tree, I was shocked at how big it really was. There we were, completely prepared or unprepared, depending on who you might ask at any moment. My chain saw carving projects had been on smaller scales, while Bill's chain saw projects totaled zero at that point. But hey, we're both fish carvers and we were determined to carve a fish out of each branch...

...Continued in the Winter 2001 Issue of Breakthrough.

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