Lakeport's Mark Colp is one of nation's best wood carvers

Lake County Record Bee
BY Elizabeth Wilson -- Staff Reporter
September 1, 2007

LAKEPORT -- Building a bear is a demanding and arduous process. The wood must be shaped, sawed, and sanded. Due to the precarious use of chainsaws, die grinders and dremel cutters, one must be careful to protect one's appendages.

While nationally renowned wood cutter Mark Colp of Lakeport does not break these rules (he has never cut himself since he picked up a chainsaw 26 years ago) he does perhaps break records for speed. Time it takes Colp to carve a bear? 30 seconds.

Of course this is a mini bear of one and a half inches. On the flip side, his tallest project was carved from a standing tree which took him three days and several sets of scaffolding to complete.

The project he had the most fun creating, he says, was a sculpture of a little boy who just caught a bass, kneeling on a dock with a fishing line. "I carved the dock, fish, boy and a thin, long fishing string out of one big piece of wood it took about 40 hours," he said. When one ponders what one can accomplish in their 40-hour work week, one begins to gain some perspective on the subject of professional wood cutting.

It is no doubt the skill Mark has developed from carving more than 400 intricate pieces per year has earned him wide recognition. He is among 10 carvers asked to compete at the nationwide Annual Chainsaw Sculpting Invitational in Minnesota at the end of the month.

Colp has been carving competitively since 1998, taking top awards each time. Inheriting the skill from his father, Don Colp, a pioneer in wood carving with a west coast championship named after him, Mark Colp says it was easy to decide what to do with his life after he graduated from Lower Lake High School in 1981.

Colp turned his talent into a career, thus avoiding the typical toil most 9 to 5ers face. He says although he has cranked out more than 10,000 sculptures during his career, it still doesn't feel like a job. "Actually, I've never filled out a job application in my life," Colp laughed, as he sat near his wood carving exhibition at the Lake County Fair on Friday. "I've always been a wood carver, ever since I picked up a chainsaw for the first time when I was 14," he said.

Colp and his girlfriend, Barbara Coker, who credits Colp with "creating a monster" since she took up the craft a year ago, were on hand to answer questions and show their carving skills to interested spectators at the Lake County Fair. For many, it was a clarifying moment most people have recognized his work around Lake County for years.

"I've seen his sculptures over by the movie theater before," said one passerby. Another recalled seeing his lifelike bears near Soda Bay Market and thinking they were real. The two new sculptures of a fireman and police officer in Museum Park in Lakeport are also his work.

While Colp's years of experience may lead some to think producing a decent sculpture is beyond their capabilities, Barbara Coker happily sawed away on an impressive-looking bird after just a year's experience. "Women can do this too, you get dirty and it's so much fun," said Coker, wood chips flying everywhere.

"I got started hanging out at the shop and going to different competitions and things with Mark, and I said you gotta give me something to do' so he started me out on little projects like burning and small cuts and things, then one day Mark handed me the chainsaw and I was like all right that's what I'm talking about!"

Coker said while she often sketches out her designs, Colp mostly does freehand. "He just starts carving, but I sometimes sketch out my design with a crayon first," said Coker.

For the past several years, Colp has been part of a five-man carving team representing Echo chainsaws. Tim Bartelt, supervisor of marketing with Echo says they are lucky to have him.

"He's placed in every competition and they travel all over the country. He has a great personality and takes time out of his carving to answer questions. He's talented and great with the public, that's why when we saw him carve we knew we wanted him on the team," said Bartelt.

To place in a competition, carvers have to do better each time, Colp says. "If you win so many events you get points, then they add up the points and that's how you place in the west coast championship."

Ironically, the one time Mark competed with the elder Colp was on Father's day at the Don Colp West Coast Championship. "I begged him to, and he ended up fourth and I placed third. I gave him the plaque for father's day it had his name on it," said Colp.

In the Minnesota Invitational, only carvers who finish in the top three are asked back. Last year Colp placed third, this year, he must finish second in order to return. And the competition is stiff.

"There's a defending champion right now, he's actually the one carving at Avenue of the Giants, the same place where my dad worked in the late 70s. It's at the Legend of Big Foot, they've always had a carver there for the last 20-some years," said Colp.

In order to prepare for the four-day long competition, carvers generally start thinking about their design well in advance. "Sometimes it's a whole year. You leave there and you immediately start thinking about your next piece. This year the theme is fall has it all' so I'm thinking of doing something similar to last year, maybe a little better. Last year I did a bear, moose, eagle, and wolf all in one piece," said Colp.

Colp says chainsaw carving originated in the 1950s, and that now is the best time to get started. "People started playing around when they were cutting down trees, maybe made a chair or started carving other things when chainsaws became more versatile. A lot of projects were started with a chainsaw and then finished with chisels. Right now there are so many wood carvers out there and competitions, the saws are better, the machines are better all you have to do is watch and practice," said Colp.

"Maybe we're just a different breed of artists we crank out multitudes of sculptures and it becomes almost like an industry, it's not really touchy feely. It's really the most obnoxious machine you've ever worked with, not like a soft paint brush," said Colp, just before guiding the saw carefully to the redwood.