WINTER

BOWLING THE BURL
THE INEXACT ART OF THE CHAINSAW

Men in rural areas have a fascination with chainsaws.
Mike wants to buy his first one.
His enthusiasm has gotten me to remember how the inexplicably sharp teeth on a speeding chain and controlling its bite, makes the sissy man manly and the manly man manlier. I fit somewhere in the former category.
Holding a powered up chainsaw for the first time was like speeding toward the edge of a cliff but turning just in time to hairpin the curve.

I was thrilled checking out of Home Depot with my very own, yet obviously beginners size tool of destruction.
After mastering mixing gas and oil to the proper ratio and filling the tank, I took chain and saw to the woods along with the 50 page manual of which half is written in Spanish and French. Neither lingual in either, I ignored those sections as the danger illustrations of chopping off your foot seemed curiously similar as those in the English section.
As I glance through this tome of reference, I realize that this toy of deliverance can cause human destruction; I drop my banjo and repair out of the woods to the back porch for a sunny afternoon of manual reading.
The further along the pages instructed, I began to instruct myself that this new gizmo might be best left in the barn without a digit stuck somewhere between it’s ever growing and greedy mouth. Wouldn’t it be smarter to wait until George is here to rush me to New Milford Hospital with my severed arm packed in ice?
But the call of the wild kept me plodding through this silly booklet until I was confident that if I mastered all the proper safety precaution’s. I could become the master of sapling inialation. With bigger dreams of clearing the back forty in the years to come, I took the big steps back to the woods to a space seemingly not unlike the pretty drawing in the manual. My site had not a lot of large trees looming overhead that my victim might get caught up in. I was sure I was safe from harm.
.
The clearing seemed a perfect setting to begin my career as the anti forester.
I sat down and read the manual again.
After an hour or so, I had managed to slice every poor little sucker every which way.
Stepping back to survey the damage I now had a clearer understanding about clearing.
I had made a mess. It looked as if Mt. St. Helens had blown her top in several different directions and the poor little trees scattered like a good game of pick up sticks.
I had made a mess, but my sissy manly manhood definitely felt satisfied.
It took me the better part of the next two weeks to clean it up. I had a nice little glen where I thought I would put a bench. I could go and read manuals and stuff.

I never put the bench there and in the years since, the little saplings have grown again along with brambles and sticker bushes reclaiming their rightful residence.
I had bigger fish to fry!
These many years later I now have 4 chainsaws, each one bigger and more powerful, least I say scarier than the last.
I have been instructed by professionals how to and have indeed fallen great trees in the proper manner. I have cleared and created great spaces for recreation and pleasure.
But over the time spent, my back ached, arms tired and enthusiasm waned from such daunting exercise.
I soon came to the happy conclusion that there are hefty young men in all their local chain sawing glory were much easier to hire and direct than actually pain myself with such nonsense.

These tree climbing, tree falling folk also seem to pride themselves in the lost lumbering art of chainsaw honed bears, totem poles, soaring eagles and about any type of wildlife that would adore a hunting lodge or a house that I typically would never enter. Dead things hanging on walls stuffed or chain sawn runs my imagination to massacres and bloody limbs in the movies. A place or theater I refuse to step into or spend a dime on.
These local craft fairs have several little pop up tents with chainsaw art on display for sale. Usually there is one or two burly burl cutters performing live demonstrations on how to carve turkey out of a tree stump. Although fascinating to watch, the end result is never pleasing to me.
Duck, baby raccoon and sly Mr. Fox isn’t a project of appeal and just plain silly in my opinion.

Then one day as I was touring the Craft Center in Brookfield Ct., I saw the most amazing
bowl that had once been burl on some great oak somewhere. It had been crafted into the most wonderfully utilitarian piece whose form and beauty was extremely pleasing.
But $710.00? I could neither afford to buy it or would. Hell, I have a chainsaw…I’ll make my own!
Eager to begin my own burl bowl production line, I managed to ruin several chains as I hacked and cut this tree piece or that tree piece with the image of Michelangelo’s pricking of David out from some big slab of marble. Be it not marble, wood has a unique quality of beauty. I was able to sculpt shapes and vessels each of its own uniqueness in form and serviceability.
Happy again with my third arm whirring and slicing, I’ve discovered the true meaning of the testosteral joy of chain saws.
The first year of hacking bowls, all became Christmas gifts. I don’t have one left of my own from that year. In fact I’ve gifted everyone I’ve made.

The first chain sawing made 7 bowls out of a fallen Maple from down in the woods.
The chainsaw acts only in the preliminary steps of shaping a bowl. Hours later and after using a variety of sanding tools and several hundred pieces of sandpaper, unfolded glorious layers of wood take shape and size then tells me when to stop.
The true finishing step is to wax your bowl not unlike how you would finish your hardwood floor. I use a mixture of turpentine and boiled linseed oil and rub it on in several layers then polish it with a speed buffer.
I’ve created a masterpiece.
I am Michelangelo and have single handedly ripped my very own David of a Bowl out of some old stump.
I have yet to realize my dream of finding the perfect burl and displaying my chainsaw art in a gallery. Wouldn’t it be fascinating to have a show at the American Craft Museum in New York of Bonecutter Bowls?
Popping up a tent at local craft shows would be more likely.

Oh well, it was fun.
I don’t produce my chainsaw art as much as I did the first year.
And I never cut and clear anymore.
But I always keep my chainsaws oiled up and ready for the next adventure into the woods searching for fallen giants and keep in touch with my tree men burly boys who never seem to remember to save me a burl.
I do have a hankering to make a few this Christmas though. A handsome couple of guys, Don and Mike, have moved into the neighborhood recently and they had several trees taken down on their property. We have been offered a cord of free firewood. It’s ash.
A nice hardwood. I must get over there to see if a burl awaits me. A Bonecutter Burl Bowl would make a nice thank you gift for the firewood, don’t you think? Mike wants to buy a chainsaw! We want Don and Mike to like us.