I came back from 3 weeks of carrying fence posts up and down mountains in Nevada and immediately started helping Paul Jones of http://www.SpiritBrothers.com with a 30 foot tall history pole carving. Yesterday we were on the front page of the Tri-City Herald and a very nice video interview is on the Herald web-site at http://www.tri-cityherald.com/958/story/108818.html

Paul worked on this thing for a week before I arrived and he estimates we have 3 more weeks of carving before completing the project. Figures include trappers, natives, salmon, water wheels, ferry boats, an eagle, Lewis and Clark, and as many as 30 historical drawings submitted by local children will be included as well. It's all tied together by a flow of carved water which fits nicely with the park being on the Columbia River.

When this maple tree is finished, there is a slightly smaller black walnut to be carved...


Butch
http://www.WoodHacker.com

That looks like a great project. Nice that you got some coverage as well.

Well, that nice coverage grew today. The story of Paul [minus me] and his historical story pole was picked up by the Seattle PI and USA Today!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_odd_dying_tree_art.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2008-03-06-tree-carver_N.htm

But the story in our local Herald does include a nice photo of me.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/108859.html


Butch

What a nice project. Thanks for posting it.

There are several other salvage carving projects that have been done in the last few years, but there's never a mention of how they will be protected from all the predators, the fungus and bugs that want to eat that good wood.

Can you tell us something about this project.

thanks, Mike

What a great project! I think it's great how we can preserve our history with our art form. We need more cities to do this instead of just cutting down the trees. It's starting to become more popular. I know of a few similar projects like this that have been done like:

this one began in 2007 in NY on trees damaged by carver Rick Pratt

http://www.carvingsforacause.com/

and this one back in 2006 from trees damaged by Hurricane Katrina, carved by Dayton Scoggins:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/784168/stump_gets_a_new_shape_artists_carve_pelican_turtles_and/index.html

here is a site that shows lots of pictures of the project:

http://www.biloxi.ms.us/gallery/53007/

Does anyone else know or remember of any other preservation of trees in public places?