Chainsaw artist’s projects create a buzz in Bay Area
Former industrial equipment salesman found a second career with a pelican he ‘doodled’ on a tree stump in his front yard
Given a chainsaw and a tree, most people would get to work cutting down timber.
When James Phillips found himself in the same situation some years back, he was planning on doing just that. But he paused and then set about starting a new career.
“Fifteen years ago, I was cutting a tree down in my front yard and I was looking at these stumps and thought it was interesting stuff,” said the longtime Clear Lake City resident. “I doodled on it with a chainsaw and made a pelican out of it. Then family and friends would look at it and say, ‘Wow! Can you do that again?’ and I got obsessed and started making stuff with all of my free time.”
Carving that pelican was not Phillips’ first foray into art.
“When I was a child, my mother taught me how to draw, and I could draw pretty well,” said Phillips, 63. “In high school, I fancied myself as an artist. Then I didn’t make any art for 30-someodd years. I was a salesman. I sold industrial equipment around Houston.”
Phillips said he has sculpted hundreds of pieces with his chainsaws.
“But I’ve never counted them,” he said.
He is putting the finishing touches on his most recent work, which can be found next to the jogging trail in the Taylor Lake Village Community Park where a tree had fallen over but the root ball was still embedded in the ground.
The tree was cut back, but a section about 8 feet long was left behind for Phillips to get to work.
“I’m cutting it to make it look like a tree,” the artist said. “But there will be two kids climbing on it.”
During a break in the action, the Liufau family paused to look at the work in progress. Phillips took some time to explain how he creates the piece and then took out a can of spray paint to show where different features will be.
“Right here there’s going to be a hollow and a bird will be here,” he said. “Then there’s going to be an animal coming out of this hole. What kind of animal do you think it should be?”
He encouraged the Liufau kids — Isaac, Owen and Noah — to climb up the tree and showed how the carving makes it easier to get to the top and also to descend.
“It’s so legit.” mom Aubrey said. “They like to climb on this and they could get down, but they kind of had to slide. It’s cool now that they have something that is easier to climb up.”
Her husband, A.J., said the sculpture will add much to the park.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” he said. “It’s another aspect of the park that will make people love it even more.”
Phillips has two other sculptures in the park, one is of a boy fishing, the other is of a NASA rocket.
His tree sculptures are scattered across the state. Several dozen photos of them can be found on his InshoreSculpture.com website. Smaller pieces can be found at the Rene Wiley Gallery in Galveston.