Chain Saw For Cutting Tree
A chainsaw (or chain saw) is a motorized, mechanical portable saw. A typical chainsaw consists of a gasoline-fed engine. Attached to it is an elongated guide bar with rounded ends and a length ranging from 14 to 36 inches. Its width varies from three to five inches. A chain carrying small sharp blades is mounted around this bar. A clutch and sprocket mechanism transfers mechanical power from the engine to the chain. The chain with its blades then rotates and cuts through wood and even concrete.
Environmentalists detest chainsaws as they speed up the cutting of trees. Artists, however, love them. At least those artists known as chainsaw artists. They use modern chainsaws for the ancient art of woodcarving.
The oldest chainsaw artists on record are Ray Murphy and Ken Kaiser. In the early 50s, Murphy carved his name on a piece of wood using a chainsaw. Kaiser undertook a bigger project. He created 50 carvings with his chainsaw. These carvings include a huge statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. These are now found at a roadside attraction in California along US Highway 101 in the Redwood National and State Parks.
The momentum for the growth of the art came in the 60s. Chainsaw dealers, in an effort to demonstrate the ease of handling and the power of their product, had artistic personnel carve simple sculptures using chainsaws. This was intended to be a sales gimmick but it caught the attention of true blue artists.
Brenda Hubbard, Don Colp, Susan Miller, and Mike McVay are a few of the new artists who began experimenting with chainsaw art. By the 1980s the art had become popular that wood carving contests begun sprouting. In 1987, the first World Championship in Chainsaw Carving was held. This contest was won by Barre Pinske who was then 24 years old.
By 2007, there were close to a thousand chainsaw artists in the USA cutting away at wood producing pieces of art. Books about the art, the Internet, and the Cascade Chainsaw Sculptors Guild newsletter The Cutting Edge helped popularize it.
Chainsaw art has also been exported to the UK, Germany, Japan, Australia, and Africa largely though the Internet. It is expected to spread further as it has become both an art form that produces excellent sculptures as well as a “performance art”.
This is because chainsaw carving often draws audiences who are attracted to this novel way of carving wood and to the dexterity of the artist in the use of potentially dangerous equipment.
