(Click to view... 72KB)“The thing is, you have to sell a lot of carvings to pay the bills,” Young admits. “And as woodcarvers go, I’m pretty slow. I start out with a specific vision in my head, and I’m not satisfied until that vision is completed. I don’t like carving things that look cartoonish or rough. For me, the end result of a sculpture is more important than the amount of time I take to complete it."
That commitment to realism in the finished product is breathtakingly evident in Young’s work. One can’t help but be entranced by the soulful look in the eyes of his Jimi Hendrix sculpture, the life-like tension in its fingers as it grips the guitar. Young acknowledges that the use of hand tools has a lot to do with his ability to achieve such a realistic quality in his work, but admits that, in using them, he has become a reluctant participant in the controversy surrounding chainsaw art.
“I, personally, don’t want to get involved in the controversy,” he says. “I don’t think in terms of chainsaw artist, or hand tool user, or any other variation on the theme. I use a chain saw to create the main part of a sculpture because it’s the most expedient way to do it, and I use hand tools to finish it off because that’s how I achieve the effect I want. If people want to think of me as a chainsaw artist, that’s fine with me. But I’m really just an artist, doing what I have to do to create the work that I have in mind.”
(Casey Young can be reached at 3740 Swan Rd., Mount Vernon, WA 98273; 360-848-1249.)