For almost three years now, a grove of towering ash trees have sat slowly dying like lifeless monuments at the entrance to Battle Creek Leila Arboretum. Like millions of other trees around the country, they fell prey to the Emerald Ash Borer beetle.
“Most times the trees are just cut down and we had talked about that, but then a group of volunteers got together with the director and said, ‘Why don’t we do something different?’” says Jerry Tilmann, a volunteer at the arboretum.
That’s how the Fantasy Forest Art Competition was born. For one week, June 13th through 20th, chainsaw artists—and a few outside that category—will transform these trees where they stand into fantasy-themed art pieces.
At his home in East Leroy—about 15 minutes south of Battle Creek—chainsaw artist Sam Dougherty chips away at a carving of two squirrels chasing each other up a tree. He points to larger logs lying on the ground.
“Some of this pine is from when development was done and they were going to throw it all out to tree removers going into people’s yards—I’ll get a phone call. And you’re typically, this is mostly pine here…it’ll get thrown in a dump and forgot about forever," he says.
"But again I just love the fact that like that big chunk of pine there will be a bench in the arboretum for 15 years or whatever it’ll last. I mean that’s pretty cool.”
That bench will be a memorial in honor of arboretum supporters Arnold and Lucy Stucky. Dougherty says it will likely have honeycomb on it because Arnold Stucky was a beekeeper.
Around town, Dougherty goes by the moniker of “Starving Carvist.” You might have seen his dinosaur Charlie at Battle Creek Bombers games or his giant ice cream cone in front of Station 66. Dougherty says those projects were fun, but the beehive bench is the kind of thing he really likes to do.
“A stump carving in a tree that families used to have picnics under, I’ve done that. And the tree was hit by lightning and you know you turn it into something that still keeps the tree alive there that they’ve shared for generations. Or recently I did a memorial for a gentleman that passed away last fall and he was a mentor at a shooting range for teenage kids and so on. And actually did a life-size likeness of him with his arm around a kid and they’re both looking at ducks flying overhead. And to see like his wife to see that and tear up a little bit. And to just have some solid meaning behind the art, it really means a lot.”
At the arboretum, Jerry Tilmann says the organization plans to plant disease-resistant trees in the old ash grove, but the wood-carved fantasy creatures will still stand.
“Although not living it’s going to be a living memorial to the arboretum and its heritage,” he says.
