Live Chainsaw Portrait Carving
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What am I talking about?
Why?
Who is Ziggy Sawdust and his Chainsaws from Mars?
Who is Ziggy Sawdust and his Chainsaws from Mars?
Because time does not care about us. We live and love, grow old and its done. We have stories, experiences, wisdom, faults, warts and farts. We are all valid. We are all equal before the saw. The saw does not care what it cuts, but we make our choices. This is a unique art form that requires you as subject and active participant. It is a
Because time does not care about us. We live and love, grow old and its done. We have stories, experiences, wisdom, faults, warts and farts. We are all valid. We are all equal before the saw. The saw does not care what it cuts, but we make our choices. This is a unique art form that requires you as subject and active participant. It is a trial by chainsaw, a celebration of your life and a rebirth, a resurrection of your image.
Without a doubt our country has become divided. We pay more attention to our digital devices than we to our neighbors. People tend to gather and support the person sitting in the chair when I am carving. They are comparing you to the wood and watching how stoically sit in a cage, with a stranger wielding a chainsaw. Thats awfully brave of you. And now strangers share the bond of once in a lifetime event.
Its a powerful thing to hold a rendering of yourself. Its an acknowledgement. You are here, you belong. You are seen. In the history of humans culture has always marked life passages with ceremonies. Most of those are lost to time.
It is my hope that I can give these portraits away. There are
Who is Ziggy Sawdust and his Chainsaws from Mars?
Who is Ziggy Sawdust and his Chainsaws from Mars?
Who is Ziggy Sawdust and his Chainsaws from Mars?
Ziggy Sawdust welcomes kind and gentle persons into his sawdust containment chamber to sit on the Chair of Death for 17 minutes. I know what you’re thinking, but this is no ordinary Chair of Death. It is our Chair of Death Mk IV. It is 32% more comfortable than our previous Chair of Death Mk III.If you can find a more comfortable Chair
Ziggy Sawdust welcomes kind and gentle persons into his sawdust containment chamber to sit on the Chair of Death for 17 minutes. I know what you’re thinking, but this is no ordinary Chair of Death. It is our Chair of Death Mk IV. It is 32% more comfortable than our previous Chair of Death Mk III.If you can find a more comfortable Chair of Death I would buy it, but if you have room for only one Chair of Death in your life I would make it this one. I digress.
While you, are sitting in the afore mentioned, Chair of Death for 17 minutes, Ziggy will reduce a 2 inch thick by 24 inch tall by 14 inch wide plank of southern yellow pine imported from the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, for your artistic pleasure into, your visage. That's correct your portrait carved live with a chainsaw. But wait there's more!
We remove this freshly hacked wooden doppelganger from the jawhorse where it was carved to outside the sawdust containment chamber and place it on the Altar of Altering. You, kind person, stand on my right side because I happen to be left handed. In that left hand I possess a propane roofing torch. Under the vast infinite night sky, in front of the assembled multitude we subject your carved wooden image to a bath of purifying flame emanating from this roofing torch such that your image glows with embers in the night sky. You could say this is your spark in the dark, the essence of your very existence for all of these fine people here to celebrate! But wait! There's More!
If you are in appropriate condition and only appropriate condition is appropriate Ziggy will place said roofing torch in your hands. You are on this green earth to burn your face off are you not? But WAIT! THERES MORE!!!
We remove this charred burnt out husk that formerly resembled yourself, from the Altar of Altering and place it back inside the Sawdust Containment Chamber on to the jawhorse where with a wire brush Ziggy removes the excess char to reveal prominent wood grain highlights and charcoal shadows. Your image is reborn, you are resurrected from the ashes hallelujah, in beautiful wood grain with charcoal shadows for you to take home as an artifact of your experience!
Who Am I?
Who is Ziggy Sawdust and his Chainsaws from Mars?
Who Am I?
I have more failures to my name than you can imagine. but this is one thing that I do well. I capture 17 minutes of your life in a plank of pine. No super powers or wealth involved. No high tech or computers involved. I am a real person carving real people, err, real wood to celebrate real people.
I came up with the idea of live carving p
I have more failures to my name than you can imagine. but this is one thing that I do well. I capture 17 minutes of your life in a plank of pine. No super powers or wealth involved. No high tech or computers involved. I am a real person carving real people, err, real wood to celebrate real people.
I came up with the idea of live carving portraits at a festival in Florida called Loveburn in 2016. It was kind of a experiment, but it worked. I've carved more than 700 people by now and it's been getting more and more refined.
in one respect this carving a portrait of the nation, one face, and interview at a time.
Thats why I'm trading stories for portraits and sharing both with you as a vlog. Like carving the portraits, I have never vlogged before. I am depending on your honest opinions and input. That input includes venues and yahoos, err, folks you want to see carved. This sounds so Sweeny Tod. Its not. I have sawdust.