<< Back 11/4/02 Unraveling the earthy mysteries of chainsaw art By Jay Hardwig Well well well. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and the Christmas shopping season is well-nigh upon us. I am tempted to say that the shopping season always greets me like a sharp slap in the face, but in fact I’ve come to enjoy the exercise. I am not acquisitive by nature — at least if you’re not counting my gas range and new computer — but I do my best for two weeks a year. It is my brief tango with materialism, and I try to keep it short, simple, and imaginative. Which is why, on a Saturday not long ago, I found myself on I-26 towards Hendersonville, on the scout for chainsaw art. I know what you’re thinking: “chainsaw art” is a contradiction in terms. Maybe so, maybe so, but what a fun little contradiction it is. I am broad-minded in these matters. I do not hold the word “art” to be holy; in fact, I think we find it everywhere. The term deserves to be wrestled from the conservatory elite and placed into humbler hands. Who better to do it than a hillbilly with a chainsaw? To be sure, your standard roadside chainsaw sculptor is not an effete, turtle-neck wearing artiste (with an “e” on the end), dabbling in camel-hair brushes and twenty-dollar tubes of paint. No, it’s just saws and stumps and a little imagination and behold! It’s a dwarf! It’s a dragon! It’s Santa Claus! Whatever you like. Chainsaw Art is amateur art, earthy and rustic and Southern and strong. As folk art, it may not beat your finer pottery and quiltwork, but it’s at least on even footing with cornhusk dolls, in my estimation. It far surpasses anything made with pinecones, glitter, and glue, and yet those materials are called “art supplies” with a straight face. So why not the chainsaw? Admittedly, we are treading the fine line between folk art and crafts & hobbies here. As it happens, I have done some thinking on this matter. Pinecones suggest that you’re in the realm of crafts and hobbies, as do Popsicle sticks, ribbons, and felt. Small, adhesive googly eyes are a dead giveaway. It’s a tricky distinction, but it lies somewhere deep in the gut. We professional art critics can only go on how something makes us feel, and when I walk into one of those big shiny craft supply stores, I feel as if I’m surrounded by mountains of crap. Standing in the Saturday afternoon sunshine at the roadside haunt of a local chainsaw artist, I feel I just might be in the presence of art. It’s not Picasso, it’s not Rodin, it may not even be good, but I feel fine calling it art. Speculation, at this point. I’m still in the car, driving South, with Eli in the seat behind me. I’m heading for a spot on U.S. 64, not far from the interstate, somewhere between Apple Valley and Edneyville. As an itinerant teacher in the Henderson County School system, I pass by this spot every week, and every week I am tempted by the small menagerie of chainsaw critters that beckon silently from their spot on the side of the road. I have wanted to stop countless times, but I am always on the clock, always almost late for my next appointment. But now I have come back for a weekend rendezvous; I can slow, and stop, and take all the time I want. As the miles fall before me, I catch myself wondering what a true master would do with the form. How would chainsaw sculpture look in the hands of Alexander Calder or Auguste Rodin. Is there an avant-garde in Chainsaw Sculpture, and if so, what does it look like? Are there special blades for the best among them? At the Art Institute of Chicago, are the best and brightest forgoing the old mixed-media stand-by to have a fling with the common chainsaw? Somehow I doubt it. As I approach Exit 18, I was distraught to discover that Eli has fallen asleep in his carseat. Here I am, smack in the middle of an earnest attempt to give the boy a little culture, to inject a little fine art into his holiday season, and he’s dancing with the Sandman. My noble attempt to refine his aesthetic sensibility is dashed upon the rocks as a ship upon a foreign shore. You can take a boy to the Louvre, but you can’t make him admire the Gaugin. I’m being a bit disingenuous, I’ll allow. The appeal of chainsaw art lies not in expertise but its opposite. There are no special blades or expensive paints here, nor a refined aesthetic sensibility. It is a truly democratic art form, available to anyone with a saw and a stump. If standards are low, they ought to remain there. Calling Chainsaw Art “tacky” is like saying the Sears Tower is too tall; that is part of its appeal. The scene upon arrival is heartbreaking. I had passed this spot many times before, and it had always been alive with pine-stump critters, rows of them lined up in the Carolina sun. What I saw before me now was but a shell of its former extravagance. The place was flat-out desolate. There was a single carved black bear, snout painted red, standing guard over the emptiness, but the rest of the bestiary had vanished, whether sold or snatched into the air I do not know. There was another stump with just a few cuts made into it, but what it would be I could not tell. A snake, a salmon, a gnu? A frog pushing a wheelbarrow? Dancing ducks? Elvis himself? There were scraps, and a barrel where those scraps had been burned. A pair of clear, protective eyewear lay thrown to the side, resting on a pile of sawdust, as if abandoned in haste. The house at the end of the drive had no car in front of it, and no lights on. I got out for a closer look. The chopping block where the work was done stood silent. In another rusting barrel lay evidence of the artist’s inspiration: two empty packs of Marlboros, a Sam’s Choice Cola, and an empty King Kan of Icehouse beer. In a small ditch nearby lay three Smoky Bears — one in orange, one in blue, one in green — for all appearances thrown aside and forgotten. Were they rejects, or refugees? I was tempted to give them a good home, but I couldn’t be sure they had been left for good. I couldn’t be sure of anything. What was the story here? Had the artist folded-up shop? Chased, scorned, unappreciated by the community, had he left for less hostile climes? Or, worse, laid down the chainsaw for good? Or was he just out for breakfast? There were no answers here, only questions. Despondent, I kicked my way through the pine needles until I stumbled upon a gargoyle. Cut into a rooted stump, his expression was the same as my own: pained, careworn, slightly bewildered. I was impressed by the work — it was expressive, elegant even — and I wanted to see more. But where? And then, as if by divine grace, my eyes fell on some lettering carved into the gargoyle’s base. I turned to get a better look and the words came into clear focus: “Travis Benfield – 02.” What had seemed so fleeting and evanescent suddenly had a shape. I had a clue; I had a name. The mystery was not solved, not by any means. Would he be back? Were the bears truly orphans, or were they just resting on their sides, blown over by the previous night’s strong winds? Would I find someone to answer my questions, or would the clue remain a maddening hint and nothing more? Eli slept peacefully in his carseat, unaware of these dramatic developments. The mystery gnawed at me. But I had something — a clue, a name, a lead — and the sense that my work had just begun. I wheeled the car back out onto Highway 64 and began the long journey home. (Jay Hardwig is a teacher and writer who lives in Asheville. He can be reached at smardwig@charter.net)