John Adamson- Tree Sculptor

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British Totem Pole

The Skelton Grange Environment Centre, Leeds asked me to carve a totem pole.    In the past I have avoided totem poles as they are alien to my way of working, but the wood did not really say that it could be anything else.    We agreed that it should be a British totem pole rather than a copy of an American one.  

I did some research.  The figures on an American totem pole are described as bold and stylised.    They seem to be representation of Native American Indian shamans, rather than the animals themselves.  The cloaks and headdresses representing animal / gods are the most important elements and this allows the carver to design a figure that is all cloak and head but almost no legs.     Legs are a weakness in any design because they are so thin relative to the weight they are supporting.     The figures need to be bold because they need to be recognisable in difficult circumstances.    A totem pole can be 60 feet or 20 metres high so the top figure is not going to be easy to see.

The choice of animals for the British totem pole was influenced by the indigenous animals and practicality of carving them.   The Centre’s symbol is a heron but the problems of the thin legs ruled it out.   We decided on an owl, frog, and a child, all resting on carved grass infested by slugs.  The Flying Slug is the name of one of the centre’s educational programs

Most of the work is done with a chain saw. This can be a surprisingly sensitive cutting tool that can almost be bent round to cut the shape required. For the faces a large broad and shallow gouge and a mallet will be used. A chain saw is too big for this sort of delicate work and the surface texture produced by the hand tools contrasts with the chain saw cut.

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