A little imagination goes a long way

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April 3, 2006

By Ruth Ann Replogle The Enid News and Eagle Mon Apr 03, 2006, 02:54 PM CDT

WATONGA — Jim Sinclair’s philosophy is if you can do it, he can do it.

The retired Blaine County sheriff took up wood carving in 1994 while on vacation in Gunnison, Colo. He saw a man carving images on bark and approached him.

“I said, ‘I’m a wannabe. He was there a week and taught me all he could,’” Sinclair said.

His first carvings now hang on the wall over a porch he enclosed just to display his woodwork.

“In 1998 we were in Montana. I saw some chainsaw bears,” Sinclair said, and he was hooked. He wanted to buy one to take home and to model his own bears after, but the $250 price tag deterred his wife, Naomi.

“That’s too high,” Sinclair quoted her as saying. “She said ‘You’ll just have to remember it.’”

And remember he did. Several bears stand guard in his yard. Each was sawed out of cottonwood. His first carvings, masks of old men, appeared in cottonwood bark.

“I like to use cottonwood. It doesn’t split as bad,” Sinclair said. Unfortunately, there is a beetle that feasts on cottonwood. Sinclair treats his chainsaw bears with water seal and tries to keep them out of the elements.

“They’ll deteriorate like any wood when you have them in the weather,” he said.

He snags his cottonwood from a variety of locations. His brother worked for the city of Watonga and on his days off trimmed trees.

“He’d supply my wood,” Sinclair said. He also had friends who had cottonwoods on their land. “If someone gives me a bunch of wood, I make them a bear free,” he said.

He has been known to pick up a piece or two laying on the side of the road or floating down a river.

His wife of 45 years aids him in his woodwork. She paints the statues he chainsaws, including full-scale cowboys and Indians. Sinclair creates intricate details with his chisels and woodburning tools.

Cottonwood isn’t his only medium. He has occasionally used cedar for his chainsaw bears. Diamond willow, basswood and aspen from the north country are good for shallow and deep relief carvings and figurines. Sinclair said basswood is the wood most carvers use because it has a fine grain and no knots.

He carves an animal in gypsum once year and he’s trying his hand at gourd bowls. He wants to learn to carve in bone, to stain glass and to etch glass.

“I’ve tried to a little of everything. It’s a good hobby,” Sinclair said.

At 72, Sinclair has had both knees replaced, therefore he can’t restore the old Ford truck he started on. It sits in his garage, covered and untouched.

The woodworking is easier on his body and he likes the creativity in it.

“After you get into it, you have imagination,” Sinclair said. Sometimes a rabbit turns into a cat as he is carving. “You can do something with it, even if it seems a mistake.”

Although “I kind of like to keep some of it,” Sinclair said he gives several pieces away to friends and he does sell a few. He has not been commissioned to do any pieces and doesn’t really plan on getting into that.

“It’d be different if I did it for a living,” Sinclair said. “It gives me something to do.”

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