Chainsaw artist Wayne Johnson sits with an eagle he is working on, some of his recent work surrounding him. Only two years into his craft, Wayne is already quite accomplished. His mother Jean asked Wayne to make a carving of her dog. She also asked him to carve a curling stone.
The chainsaw buzzed, chips flew and soon a bear appeared from a two-footlong cedar log.
Wearing protective glasses, Wayne Johnson carefully carved the bear, following the outline he had drawn on the wood.
The Grand Marais man works from a shop located on his brother Tim’s business property—Wrecking J’s— where Tim fixes cars and salvages parts from wrecked vehicles. The shop is located five miles east of Grand Marais about a half-mile off of Highway 61 on County Road 58, Taylor Lane.
Although he has only been at his craft for two years, Johnson has become quite accomplished. He makes a lot of eagles and bears (they sell the best, he said), and fashioned hawks, a steelhead, otter, squirrel, moose, dolphin, hawk, eagle, the Witch Tree, a gnome, a curling stone, a dog, a frog, and a bear that he turned into a weasel.
“I got the bear done and realized I forgot to make the feet for it. I was going to cut it up for firewood but Tim said, ‘C’mon, a real artist could figure it out and turn it into something else.’ I got to thinking about it and came up with a plan to make a weasel. When I got it done I really liked it but I took it to the Fisherman’s Picnic and it sold right away. I was kind of hoping no one would buy it so I could keep it. But no such luck.”
Long ago Wayne Johnson was an artist. But he practiced a different kind of art. As a point guard for the Cook County Vikings high school team he would break down a full-court press with his ball handling ability or he would make a beautiful no-look pass to an open man. He was nicknamed “Earl the Pearl” because he played like Earl Monroe. In football he was a slick quarterback with a good arm and those lightning fast feet got him out of many jams.
Following high school he attended one year at Mesabi Junior College where he enjoyed playing the starting point guard position but he said he didn’t much care for his classes.
“I was young. I wanted adventure and I was sick of school so I joined the Navy,” said Johnson.
He spent a year touring the Arabian and Red seas, visiting exotic ports and seeing Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Oman and other spots that elicit fear when heard today. “They weren’t dangerous places then,” he said. He spent the last three years of his four years of military service in Texas near Padre Island.
“Not a bad place to be stationed. I enjoyed my time in the service. Maybe not everything about it, but most of it I liked,” he said.
To carve Johnson uses a Husqvarna chainsaw with a 10-inch bar. He likes to shape either cedar or white pine. It takes him about four hours to carve a bear or an eagle. Painting and finishing takes about three more hours.
The salmon he is now carving has taken about a week, and he still needs to paint and poly it, but it is a beautiful piece.
Once he is done he paints the pieces and puts a coat of polyurethane on his creations to protect them from the elements because many of them will be displayed outside.
“I try to make animals as real as I can. I have always liked eagles and hawks. They intrigued me when I was young, watching them fly. They are magnificent birds,” he said.
Objects around him inspire his work, and he is always looking for new ideas.
“I’m always carving new stuff and I love it when people give me new ideas,” he said.
“Do you have bankers hours or what?” Tim Johnson teased his older brother as he sauntered out of the garage and walked past him.
Wayne smiled and waved him off. The two are close, always have been. They lost their sister a year ago to cancer. Their father not long before that. It hasn’t been easy.
When Wayne Johnson left the service he came home, met a local girl, got married and moved to the Twin Cities. The bright lights and fast pace were fun at first, he said, but the hectic lifestyle wore on him and he wanted to move home, but the opportunity wasn’t there.
“I spent the first 15 years finishing hardwood floors, then the next 15 years as a stay-at-home dad. But my marriage ended and my dad died and I came home to help my mom,” he said.
Going back to flooring work wasn’t an option, he said. “I’m too old for that kind of work now. I had to think of something else,” he said.
When he was in high school he liked to mold clay, and he thought of chainsaw carving as a way to make a living, but he didn’t know how to go about it.
“I bought a book and it really did a good job of describing the process, what I would need and how to go about it. Then I started,” he said pointing to a carving of a bear, “Here’s my first piece. Not the best, but I liked it and kept working hard to get better.”
One has to have more than a little artistic talent to carve something recognizable out of a piece of wood, stone or, in my case—soap. I bought seven bars of ivory soap once and tried to carve the Seven Dwarves using high-quality professional knives. I carved 10,000 pieces of teeny soap chips—none of which looked like the Seven Dwarves, and I retired as a failed artist on the spot. Most of us, I assured Johnson, couldn’t carve much of anything from a piece of wood.
When he isn’t carving Johnson is usually fishing. An avid steelhead fisherman, He caught about 20 steelhead this spring, getting to keep only one, a beauty he caught on June 9.
Anyone interested in seeing Johnson’s work up close can come to the Farmer’s Market in Grand Marais on Saturdays where he displays and sells his art. “There are a lot of talented people down there; very interesting and talented people,” he said.
For now Johnson is carving wood, carving out a new life in a slower place, at a slower pace, quiet rivers, lakes, fish, family—his kids, Nick, 16; Cooper, 13; and Dakota, 8 visit whenever they can—and friends fill his time.
He’s back home and still looks like he could take on most kids in a game of oneon one and win. Too good of shape, in fact, for me to bother asking for a game. No doubt it would turn out as it always did, as a carving competition would turn out.
“It’s great to be back,” he said, and then we talked about the hundreds of pick-up games we played at the courthouse, where old friends had gone, and when and where to go fishing.
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