‘Trivial pursuit’ turns into artful career

“When I was a child, my mother taught me how to draw. By the time I was in high school, I sort of fancied myself an artist. Then I didn’t make any art for 35 years. Art seemed like such a trivial pursuit. I had a wife and babies and a mortgage and …

“So 10 years ago I was cutting down a tree in my front yard. It was an old trash tree that needed to go. But what struck me was how beautiful the wood was. I looked at it and I felt compelled to use it for something. So I just started from scratch and kind of snuck up on it and hacked at it with my chainsaw. A pelican is what I wanted to do, so I just cut it out like a paper doll. When I was done somebody said, ‘Wow, can you do that again?’

“I got obsessed. I started making things all the time. The very first thing I ever did, that pelican, is still sitting on my fireplace.”