Wood chips and sawdust were flying everywhere at the Henty Machinery Field Day as professional power carver Angie Polglaze took to the stage to showcase her artistic flair.
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Known as the ‘chainsaw chick,’ Ms Polglaze has been carving wood artworks throughout Australia and the world for 20 years and travelled all the way to Henty from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
Her sculptures range from the life like to the mythical and comical, and she recently returned from Germany after competing in an international competition against carvers from the UK, US and Europe.
It was Ms Polglaze’s third year at the Henty field day and she said learning how to carve wood with chainsaws was just “another reason to do something new”.
“I was in art school and I just thought for me, it’s another tool,” she said.
“I wanted to know how to use that tool. I’d already done welding and bronze casting and I just loved it.
“It’s just so fast, using chainsaws to make art art; it’s sort of scary and a little bit dangerous which is what I like about it.”
Ms Polglaze also noted she was “one of the only female carvers” in Australia that did performance chainsaw art and public work.
She takes pride in her work and enjoys breaking gender stereotypes with her carving ability.
“It’s pretty intimidating and everyone’s watching because they want you to cut something off,” she said.
“It’s interesting to see the reaction from some people because there is that girl thing as well.
“The carvings blow people away because they are done within an hour from start to finish and it shows the country boys up a little.”
Ms Polglaze is a founding member of an international team of carvers called the Chainsaw Chix which is a performance based group of professional chainsaw sculptors.
She is the only Australian female carver to have won international competitions in Australia, the USA and Scotland.
Her preferred use of timber for carving is callitris, a non-native cyprus pine and she couldn’t imagine herself working in any other profession.
“I like that it’s busy and fast and noisy, and you can make big stuff quickly,” she said.
“It's all about the size of the material and we had a little bit of trouble getting wood this year, so I didn’t plan on doing anything that was too giant.
“It’s my livelihood and I like making art.
“I’m a creative creature and it’s just a nice excuse for me to do something I love doing and teach people that these chainsaws aren’t actually dangerous tools in the right person’s hand.”
