The first chainsaw carving Patty Dippolito ever made sits in the flower bed of her home on Horse Creek Road as a reminder of how far she’s come since she began learning her unique form of art.
“I tried to make my retriever (Jasper)… he’s actually quite funny looking. He’s more like a donkey,” Dippolito said with a laugh. “I’m thinking maybe I should throw it in the fire pit, and I keep telling myself, ‘No, don’t do it – because I’m getting better.’”
Last May, Dippolito was inspired to try her hand at crafting artwork out of wood while watching Timber Kings, HGTV’s wildly popular series that follows Pioneer Log Homes of Williams Lake, B.C. – the world’s largest builders of handcrafted log homes.
“I was sitting there wondering, ‘Oh, that would be so cool.’ I looked at my husband and said, ‘Can we go buy a saw?’” recalled Dippolito. “From there, it just started going.”
Chainsaw carving is an artform that connects traditional woodcarving with the more modern application of using a powered blade to create it. The origins date back to the American eastern seaboard in the 1950s and the technique has since gained popularity around the world, with global competitions now taking place as far away as Australia and Japan.
This style of art is not for the feint of heart – Dippolito said her Stihl MS170 8.6-pound gas-powered saw was “really heavy” until she got used to manoeuvring it, and she’s been lucky to so far avoid any serious injuries other than “lots of splinters.”
“If you don’t know what you’re doing, then you could get in a lot of trouble – you need steady hands and strong arms. I made the mistake of wearing shorts one day … I put the saw down and it hit my knee and it opened it up a little bit,” she said. “It was pretty intense in the beginning,” she said. “But now it’s worth it – I’m having a lot of fun.”
Now known as the Country Carver, the stay-at-home mom to nine-year-old, Samantha, uses poplar and pine to create beavers, moose, bears and more in the yard of her sprawling acreage northwest of Cochrane.
To honour her dog Jasper, who died four years ago and helped inspire Dippolito find her love of the artform, Dippolito also carves dogs for pet-owners who have lost their pets.
The untouched wood pieces usually start off at about four feet – and once completed, are worked down to between two-and-a-half and three feet. Her largest carving for a Water Valley exhibit was a 5.5-foot-tall bear.
People can find her creations through her Facebook page, and she will also appear at markets in Cremona, Carstairs and Crossfield over the summer months.
“On people’s front steps as I’m driving through Cochrane, I’d love to see my bears sitting there, saying hi. It makes me so happy to be able to create something,” Dippolito said. “Everything else is out of my head – home chores or having to do this or that later on – you pay attention to nothing else. I’m just so happy when I’m doing it.”
