Gypsy Carver Brings Ideas to Life

By Thomas P. Caldwell

Homeowners looking for something unique to place in their yards have someone to turn to in Mike Thomas, a chainsaw artist operating as Wicked NH Carvings in Bristol.

“If you can show me an idea, I can carve it,” says Mike, suggesting that potential customers check out his work on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/carverit), then Google images of what they’re looking for. “Send the one you like the best,” he says. “Customers can ask for anything.”

Also a freehand artist, Mike says, “If they can make me understand what they’re looking for, I can sketch it for them. Give me a broad idea and I’ll show 20-30 examples.”

While he has operated Wicked NH Carvings for just three years, Mike says he has been carving most of his life — ever since his uncle bought him a Dremel, a handheld rotary tool with a variety of attachments and accessories.

“I come from a family of gypsies,” he says. “I was born in 1972 in Lincoln, Maine, but my family traveled everywhere. I grew up in Laconia, but we traveled all over the place, to every state except Hawaii and Alaska.”

He picked up and improved upon his carving skills from the people he met on his travels, as well as seeking out videos on YouTube. Among those who provided inspiration was Peter Toth, a Hungarian-born artist who created wooden sculptures to honor Native Americans in every state, including the 35-foot “Keewakwa Abenaki Keenabeh” or "The Defiant One” in Laconia’s Opechee Park. (That 12-ton red oak sculpture was removed in 2019 after rot made it a hazard.)

“I love doing anything Indian-related, and do a lot of reading on Abenaki tribes,” Mike says. He also does motorcycle carvings, including custom Harley bars for houses. His own mailbox is in the form of a motorcycle.

Most of the work is done with a chainsaw, but he uses a die grinder with special bits to do the more intricate parts of the sculpture.

Before establishing Wicked NH Carvings in 2018, he had worked at a variety of jobs, including as a tattoo artist. (He also has operated a detail shop and a skateboard shop.) Then, eight years ago, he broke his spine.

“Once I broke my back, I couldn’t do anything,” he says. “To this day, I can’t do tattoos because you’re leaning over a chair.”

It took five years after the accident for him to carve again, but he found it was a great way to become active once more.

Origins

Woodcarving is a form of art dating back centuries, to soon after early man started shaping wood to make primitive tools by using sharp rocks and bones. It didn’t take long to combine art with function, with the earliest examples often used for religious purposes.

Knives and chisels would provide the most common means of shaping wood, but, according to lore, a logger named Joseph Buford Cox noticed a timber beetle larva chomping through a log in 1946, and noted that the creature cut both across and with the grain of the wood. He decided to duplicate that motion in a steel chain, and the modern chainsaw was born in 1947.

Just six years later, “Wild Mountain Man” Ray Murphy used a chainsaw to carve his brother’s name in wood for what is perhaps the earliest example of chainsaw art. Then, in 1961, Ken Kaiser created the Trail of Tall Tales in Northern California, carving large redwood logs in shapes on a Paul Bunyan theme.

By the 1980s, there were traveling chainsaw carvers who used their trucks as galleries, and chainsaw carving shops started appearing along the roadsides. Chainsaw artists appeared at country fairs and carving contests began to appear.

In the 1990s, chainsaw carving gained popularity as an art form.

For Mike Thomas, “that carnival gypsy blood” in his family made the house on Route 3-A South in Bristol the perfect spot for a business. “I love that the house is right on the road,” he says. “I have 978 feet of road frontage and that makes my business that much more successful.”

Mike says that, when he and his wife first got together, they got an apartment in downtown Bristol. “We always said, if we bought a house, we’d come back to Bristol to do it.” Nine years later, they did just that, coming back to New Hampshire from Massachusetts where he had operated the skateboard shop. Now, traffic passing by will salute him.

“Loggers know me, and they honk the horn. People at the factory in Franklin are used to seeing me out there carving, and when they see a carving in the back of a truck they pass on the freeway, they’ll say, ‘I saw your carving go by.’”

Having coached T-Ball at the Tapply-Thompson Community Center in Bristol, local people have come to know him, which also has helped as he built his business. He is known for his support of local charities such as the Franklin Animal Shelter. He said he donates to 10 charities in the area each year.

Working Through COVID

Word of mouth has helped him while other businesses have suffered during the coronavirus pandemic. Mike says last year was his best year yet, and he has had a hard time keeping up with orders.

Working with heavy logs was a problem until a local welder built a log crane, which allows him to stand logs up for carving.

He prefers using seasoned white pine for the sculptures, buying the wood from Brett Robie’s sawmill in Alexandria, as well as from other local millers. “I like white pine,” he says, “because of the ease of carving. And if it’s seasoned right, any cracking is very small — what are called hairline character cracks. They’re only small cracks, so it makes for easy maintenance.”

He will carve hardwood by special order.

He said that 80 percent of his work is done on-site, but he is willing to go out into the community to carve on people’s property if they wish, and hopes to do more of that. An example of the custom work he has done is a nine-foot cross that a Browns Beach Road customer ordered in memory of a granddaughter who had died. The sculpture, which overlooks Newfound Lake, features the girl’s spirit walking behind and emerging in front with a cat. He also carved a large eagle with wings spread, sitting on a perch.

Carvings have included weasels, crows, and rabbits — just about every animal, he says. “I’ve done I don’t know many eagles and bears — hundreds if not thousands.”

He also has done a lot of carvings for veterans, including for Wounded Warriors, featuring soldiers and symbols such as a flag or an eagle.

Mike says he can block out and put hair on a bear in about eight hours, while the painting and staining can take a couple of days.

“I typically do four or five carvings at a time,” he says.

Because he does not have the overhead that many chainsaw artists have, he said his prices tend to be lower — about $250 for a three-foot-tall bear and $1,000 for a six-foot bear. “It depends on the complexity,” he says.

His carvings have gone to seven states, including New York and Connecticut. He has a request to do a 16-foot-long center post for a log cabin in Pittsburg, New Hampshire, that would feature bears and owls, and he hopes to do some carving along the Winnipesaukee River in Franklin where the city is developing a whitewater park. “I would love to volunteer to do that; I would love to jump on the river and carve along it,” he said, noting that the park is seen as a key to Franklin’s revitalization.

“Nothing’s really difficult,” he said of his work, “it’s just a challenge. The most difficult one is the one I haven’t done yet.”