By James Wall
Brandon Kroon is not your average young man. Although he is an artist, his paint brush is a chainsaw. Although he creates beautiful sculptures from wood, it is not obtained without the noise and drama of a Stihl chainsaw.
We have just loaded his latest carving on to the Gardenworld truck and head in for a coffee at the The ‘The Storehouse’ in Mount Evelyn. This part of the world is famous for its local nurseries, including native plant nursery Kuranga. The Storehouse sells all sorts of local produce, nuts and spices and features local artists. It also does a damn good coffee.
Brandon has been displaying some his carvings there for the last few months. Some of his other carvings, the rest of the world never actually sees, as quite often he is asked to come out to a property and work on a piece of wood that a client has saved for such an occasion.
We talk a bit more about wood, including cypress pine. A lot of them are suffering from dieback which I explain to him is from a canker caused by fungal spores. These are carried by the wind, water droplets or insects. It affects a large range of species. Ironically, this has actually kept Brandon incredibly busy, as a lot of these old dieing trees on farms still have very usable wood and the cypress wood is great for chainsaw carving.
It was in the National championships in January this year where our giant raptor was created. With contestants from all over the world, the standard was high. Although Brandon didn’t win the event, he is considered by many in the industry as an up and coming young gun. The log he drew did have a bit of rot in it, which he had to work around. Obviously, the width of the wood limits design extremes. Of course it’s not just done with a chainsaw. A lot of the finer details are finished on tools like Dremels, and other wood working gadgets. To me the highlight is the eggs that the raptor stands above. They add a bit of drama, and remind us that these bird related dinosaurs were hatched from eggs.
Once tied down in securely in the truck, it was back to the nursery. A couple of staff commented on the smell of the wood. They picked it was cypress. It was something I hadn’t noticed until now, but that unique woody smell was definately there.
Velociraptors existed some 75 million years ago. They grew to about 2 metres high, the same sight as this wonderful wood carving that has found a new home and is now on display with the rest of the dinosaurs at Gardenworld. Clive Palmer, eat your heart out !
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