By Barrett Newkirk
barrett.newkirk@heraldbulletin.com
Dan Pierce gives dead trees a second life. The Middletown resident has worked the past seven years turning stumps and logs into works of art using mainly a chain saw. He’s created signs for sports teams and a whole zoo of wooden animals, but this week he spent three days on his latest project, turning a tree into a life-sized Indian.
“There’s probably nothing more challenging than doing people,” Pierce said.
Up until about a month ago, the Indian was a fir tree in Jerry Clapp’s front yard along Nichol Avenue in Edgewood. Clapp said he was tired of cleaning up its defecting twigs and needles.
The solution was hiring Pierce to create a deep-rooted piece of lawn art.
“If it wasn’t big enough for an Indian, it was going to be an eagle,” Clapp said.
Piece, 58, has experience with eagles. He carved one at the Anderson Country Club that’s 7 feet tall.
Of his many Indian statues, Clapp’s is one of the largest, Pierce said.
He usually works from images in his mind but sometimes works off of photos on the Internet. The first step of carving is to chain saw away the wood he doesn’t need.
“You have to start at the top and kind of block off large areas,” Pierce said. “All but the face, hands and feet were done with a chain saw.”
He began carving the Indian Monday morning and by Tuesday afternoon he was down to the finer details. He used a mallet and special carving tool to form the Indian’s nose and mouth.
“When I get the details carved in this, I’ll torch it to give it some extra details and shadow,” Pierce said. “That white wood doesn’t show much detail.”
Pierce charges between $200 and $2,000 per piece and said the Indian was a “midrange price.”
November marks the end of Pierce’s busy season, but he’s already taking orders for March.
The length of the season “depends on how the Indiana weather is,” he said.
Pierce travels to about 20 art festivals a year and promotes his work through the Web site www.spiritwoodcarving.com. He said it’s also common for people to see his work while he’s stopped at a gas station and buy a piece straight off his truck.
Pierce also recently completed a major project for a housing complex on the east side of Indianapolis. He carved 24 wooden sculptures ranging from 2- to 6-feet-tall. They included fish, owls, butterflies and signs for the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Pacers.
He said it’s great that more people are becoming interested in his type of work.
“You don’t see too many places with chain saw carving,” he said, “unless it’s a golf course or a park.”
