TOPSHAM

Tim Pickett of Eliot was building log houses in his home state of Oregon 32 years ago when he saw a man at a power equipment store give a chainsaw sculpting demonstration.

“I’d been following scribe lines up and down logs to fit house logs together for months and just thought maybe I had the rudiments to do this,” Pickett said Thursday at the Topsham Fair, where he could be seen sculpting wood into a hand holding an ice cream cone.

He started with the one small chainsaw he owned for log building, “but I got away with some initial moves,” he said.

“It is fun to put your thoughts into print, so to speak,” he said. “I just think it’s something the Lord had lead me into.”

His approach to each sculpture varies.

“If you say ‘bear,’ I have a rolodex of bear thoughts I can offer,” Pickett said.

Pickett uses different kinds of wood to sculpt, but tends to gravitate toward aged pine.

Preferably, the wood has been dead a year or two. Green wood checks or cracks fairly severely, as do hardwoods. Pine is a disposal product for a lot of people, “so it plays right into my game.”

As a rule, he likes to add finish to his sculptures and will often keep them for months, curing them and sometimes hollowing them out. He adds relief cuts so they have a place to contract to as they lose moisture.

He then usually starts a polyurethane regimen and has even tried log oil used on log houses.

He has five fairs lined up this year, which have become part of his marketing strategy.

“For the last handful of years, this fair has been very important to me,” he said.

He loves interacting with people and has a sense of fulfillment when people like his work.

“If somebody buys your piece, it means that you’re OK enough to have their thumbs up.”

The Topsham Fair concludes on Sunday.

dmoore@timesrecord.com