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Chain saw art festival is creating a buzz

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Photo by Cat Szalkowski-Patneau

A bear emerging from a tree stump Weiss previously created stands in his sculpture garden and work area. All the work is done with a chainsaw and a small amount of sanding is done to smooth down rough or sharp edges before burning or painting is done on the sculptures to finalize them.

Photo

Photo by Cat Szalkowski-Patneau

A bear cub emerging from a tree stump came to fruition as Tom Weiss worked on a chainsaw carving Thursday afternoon.

Photo

Photo by Cat Szalkowski-Patneau

Tom Weiss carves a small bear climbing out of a Black Oak stump. Weiss, with the Cooksville Community Center, organized the first ever Carving on the Commons, a two day event with 18 artists from around the country participating.

COOKSVILLE — It didn’t take locals in pint-sized Cooksville long to learn one of their newest neighbors is an artist.

Chainsaw carver Tom Weiss said people just followed the buzz coming from his yard.

A resident since September 2009, Weiss, 54, said he was approached last year by locals impressed with the creations he carves from large wooden logs. They asked if he’d put on a carving show.

“I thought, why do a one-man demo when we could make this an event? It would be a neat thing for people to see,” Weiss said.

So was born “Carving on the Commons,” an open-air chainsaw carving festival set to run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Cooksville Commons public square.

Weiss, a 15-year veteran of the chainsaw arts, has invited 18 skilled chainsaw artists from around the Midwest to put together the festival. It will include live demonstrations as well as food and refreshments.

“I call it high-performance art,” Weiss said. “It’s noisy, and there’s a lot of chunks of wood flying into the air. But in the end you’ve created something.”

The festival will run rain or shine, with carved items on sale all weekend. Some items will be sold at a special auction at 3 p.m. Sunday, with part of the proceeds benefiting the Cooksville Community Center.

Weiss said “Carving at the Commons” offers something for everyone.

“Men love the horsepower thing, and the women love the art. It works for everybody,” he said.

Weiss said he’s collected 50 large logs for the festival, but he doesn’t know if they will all be carved. Although Weiss said a chainsaw carver can turn an eight-foot log into a finished piece in as little as 30 minutes, he said speed won’t be the focus this weekend.

“We’re going to try to keep each carver concentrating on one superb piece. That way, the public will get to see some real quality carvings,” he said

Weiss said carvers attending the festival plan to make signs, benches, bears and eagles – even wildlife scenes that appear to pop out the wood. One of the featured artists is licensed to carve wooden likenesses of UW-Madison mascot Bucky Badger.

Weiss said people might enjoy watching the different techniques carvers use to make intricate designs in logs. Like painters who use an array of brushes, Weiss said some carvers will use saws with different sized bars and chains to craft fine details in their work.

Chainsaw carving, Weiss said, has one fringe benefit: It promotes sustainability.

“It’s reclaiming wood that a lot of times would just lay around and rot, or else it would get turned into firewood,” he said.

Event organizers say guests are encouraged to bring lawn chairs. People coming to the festival should bring earplugs, Weiss recommends, although he said noise from the chainsaws won’t be too overbearing.

“It’s not as bad as you think,” he said. “Yeah, it’s a buzzing noise, but it’s like going to a stock car race. You expect it to be a little loud.”