Tree Carver

In the small town of Threerivers, Calif., the largest piece of wood carving in the U.S.* has been under way since last autumn. Dark-haired, muscular Sculptor Carroll Barnes has been chopping away at a 22-ton hunk of Sequoia gigantea (world's largest tree), gradually carving it into a gigantic statue of the lumberman's legendary hero, Paul Bunyan, and his blue ox, Babe. Last week, depressed by poor returns from his first one-man show in San Francisco, Barnes had a mind to hang a "war casualty" sign on Paul and get a job driving a tractor.

Iowa-born Carroll Barnes studied at Washington's Corcoran School of Art, later held a scholarship at Michigan's famed Cranbrook Academy. He got the idea for his heroic-sized statue from a Los Angeles critic who had seen a smaller, 4 ft. 6 in. Paul Bunyan by Barnes at an exhibition, thought it might look well four times as big. His opportunity came when he heard that a sequoia tree standing on the slopes of the Sierras had been weakened in a Mt. Whitney hurricane, and could be cut down. Barnes trucked an 18-ft. section of its trunk down the mountains to Threerivers.

By last week the hero had half emerged from scattered tons of sequoia chips. With Blue-Ox Babe slung lightly on his shoulders, he looked as if he could indeed pick his teeth with a pine log. Sculptor Barnes says: "I'd like to do Kit Carson too, and Buffalo Bill. . . ."

* Present holder of this title is a figure of a medieval hunter by Woodcarver Barnes's teacher, famed Swedish Sculptor Carl Milles. It ornaments the lobby of Manhattan's Time & Life Building (TIME, Feb. 17, 1941).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.