Chain saws want you to know that they truly have a delicate side.
Jordan Anderson spent his youth constructing custom log cabins with his father, but according to his website, it wasn’t until Anderson met a man who carved wooden bears using chain saws that his curiosity was truly piqued. His first tree carving project would soon follow, as he decided to cut a 14-foot-long orca whale, which he reveals is his largest to date. “Wood sculpting is a vision of a fantasy,” describes Anderson, “a life that exists in our imaginations, a life that we must keep alive through art.”

In the video below, a 250-year-old spruce tree log is Anderson’s canvas. He picks up his father’s chain saw, and after a few false starts he begins. His cuts somehow seem both freewheeling and masterfully calculated. Slowly but surely the fallen tree starts to come to life as cut after cut, two clunky wooden figures become softer and more refined. In the end, the greater Anchorage area resident’s sculpture reveals just how much beauty the dead spruce tree still had stored inside.

Anderson makes these wonder sculptures to order, and he doesn’t take the task lightly. “My goal is to put a piece of my soul in each of my works,” says Anderson, whose chain saw mastery proves how graceful raw power can be.

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