B O O K

A history of the beautiful and dangerous world of chainsaw art. Art of Chainsaw Carving has profiles on leading chainsaw carvers and their work.

Meet the World's Most Unique Sculptors
Learn more about the fascinating people who practice an art form that combines beauty and danger. Jessie Groeschen introduces you to the leading chainsaw artists practicing today, and provides an overview of the art form-recounting the history and evolution of chainsaw carving going back to the 1950's.

Jessie Groeschen invites the reader of Art of Chainsaw Carving to try chainsaw carving - offering her own Sun, Moon, Bear Chair design, inspired by the art of Pacific Northwest Native Peoples. Jessie offers step-by-step instructions with full-color photography for chainsaw carving a totem-type chair.

Art of Chainsaw Carving   160 pages, with full color photography
$19.95 US plus $2.05 S&H. (For US only) Check, money order or PayPal...

Jessie Groeschen
PO Box 577
Langley, WA 98260 USA
206.789.8283

for more information email: wonder@groeschen.com

REVIEWS

AUSTRALIAN WOODWORKER MAGAZINE  February Issue, 2006

"If you have ever doubted that Chainsaw Carving is a legitimate artform, this book is sure to convince you otherwise."

WOODCENTRAL   January  2006

"This is a very upbeat book, revealing Groeshcen's love of the craft"  

 Author Jessie Groeschen is an experienced competitor at chainsaw carving events throughout the U.S. and in Japan. For those who wish to try the art of chainsaw carving, she offers one detailed chapter on how to chainsaw a chair from a raw stump, but the majority of the book is made up of profiles of eighteen professional wood sculptors. This is a very upbeat book, revealing Groeshcen's love of the craft, and tells the individual sculptors' backgrounds, how they came into carving, and how they developed it into a career when the each 'turned a corner.'
     Of the eighteen profiles, a common thread running through many of their stories is, "What I was doing really wasn't like other carvers, so I branched out on my own." They seem to be rebels all, and have definitely found their niche. There is an artist who routinely carves names in wooden belt buckles with a chainsaw while the recipient is wearing it, and one who carved a scaled, coiled dragon sixteen feet high by seven feet wide. The works are as individualized as the sculptors.
     Groeschen gives a brief history of chainsaw carving competitions, addresses and websites of shows and contests, as well as contact information and websites for the featured sculptors. This is a wonderful glimpse into a specialized form of woodworking . . . B. Siddiqui

ONE CARVER Fabulous overview of the field, January 12, 2006

Reviewer:    CS_Carver (Raleigh, NC)
I'm very happy to have this book, to show people who come to see my carvings, to inspire me, and to reinforce the idea that there are as many approaches to carving as there are carvers, and only a few of them involve bears.
The book is excellently produced, with great photos and entertaining text. I have met some of the carvers featured, and it's good to know more of their history and approach to carving.
For the record, there's one step-by-step in the book; Jessie showing how to carve a chair. If you want to learn how to carve, there are other books. But if you want to know why we carve, this is the one.