Geneva sculptor brings out tree's inner art

Art takes risk.

You have to trust your vision. You have to be willing to take up tools to make that vision reality while wondering if you have the necessary talent. You risk others misunderstanding your vision.

Barbara Dyche is an admitted risk-taker. And she really backed up that assertion lately, opening her Geneva home to an artist whose works she'd seen only online and who she had never met.

As a result, she got her heart's desire -- an unusual piece of art in her back yard.

It started with a tree

One day in August, she woke up to find a huge limb from a honey locust tree had succumbed to the weight of a heavy rain and crashed onto her deck.

It had to be removed, and the rest of the tree trimmed ($1,100) or cut down ($1,500.) The retired Wheaton schoolteacher blanched at the cost.

"There's got to be something more creative," she said.

Dyche, a ceramics artist herself, and husband Norm Estes decided a tree carving would be nice. But she didn't want some rustic Smokey the Bear or a totem pole. So she started searching artists' works online.

She found what she wanted in self-taught artist Paul Sivell's work at www.thecarvedtree.com.

But again, price presented a problem. Paul charges up to $10,000 for his work, plus expenses for travel, lodging and scaffolding.

And he lives 4,000 miles away, on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.

Dyche e-mailed him anyway, figuring if she couldn't get the artist, she could get his advice about how to go about carving the tree. She sent him pictures of the tree.

She hit him at exactly the right moment.

"I could do with a holiday," Sivell thought.

They quickly agreed to a barter: He'd come and carve the tree if they would put him up and show him around Chicago.

Paul didn't want to travel with his chainsaws and blades, so he figured he would have to rent some here. But an American carver he met at a show in London offered to lend him his tools.

And now Dyche has "Doxology."

It took Sivell about five days to make it. (The upper branches were removed before he arrived.) That left the trunk, about 20 to 25 feet tall, with four large branches.

They've become four worshipers with arms stretched to the sky, praising God.

Dyche was inspired by her faith. She and Norm took Paul to a worship service at Harvest Bible Chapel in Elgin, where worshipers raise their arms to pray and sing. (He modeled one set after a woman he saw there.) And while driving down Route 59 through Bartlett one day, Estes and Sivell stopped by the BAPS Hindu Temple on the spur of the moment. The intricate wood and marble carvings in a frieze gave him an idea on how to make the hands. "You steal from places," Sivell said with a laugh.

Setting up scaffolding, he started at the top, bringing out the four figures and two doves. Chainsaws rough out the work, and he finishes with hand tools. Three coats of Danish oil give the blond wood a warm yellowish glow.

"That's when a junk tree turns into something beautiful," Estes said.

Sivell's choices are guided by what the client wants and what the tree will allow. He has to carve with the grain (carving against creates weak pieces that could break off), and there may be surprises in the trunks and limbs to work around.

"It was just so easy," he said of "Doxology." "The tree is so nice. It's very hard wood."

The accidental artist

Sivell wasn't always an artist. He studied forestry in college, and worked for forestry and conservation-related concerns promoting the natural and cultural heritage of the Isle of Wight. He took up tree-carving 25 years ago after his wife told him about seeing a man carve a heron in 20 minutes at a fair, using a chainsaw. "I could do that," he told her.

It remained a hobby for 10 years; then he started taking commissions, while maintaining his day job. Four years ago he said to himself "I have a nice job, and am making loads of money in my spare job, but I'm absolutely worn out." That's when he became a full-time artist.

This is his first work in the United States. He mostly works in the United Kingdom, although his sculpture can be seen at his sister's house in France and on a property he owns in Romania. Works range from abstract to whimsical, from a memorial to a slain teenager to a tipped-over chess piece from "Alice in Wonderland."

And about that vacation …

He's having a good time. They've taken him into Chicago, and out to the Mississippi River (he wanted to see something wider than the Thames or Danube.) They've biked through Morton Arboretum in Lisle.

Going to the grocery store fascinated him. He's finding the size of the stores, like Woodman's in North Aurora, astounding.

"Even the mundane things interest me," he said.

Inviting a stranger to stay with you -- or going to visit strangers -- seems risky.

Dyche and Sivell got past that.

"I'm a risk taker," Dyche said.

Sivell pointed out that his family knows where he's at. "It's a business. It's less of a risk than going on a chatline!"

And Dyche feels she knew him through his art. "There's a feeling behind the art. The feeling in the art says something about the person that is there."

If you go

"Something like this should be shared with anybody," says Barbara Dyche, the patron of "Doxology."

What: See "Doxology" and meet Paul Sivell

When: 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday

Where: 14 Cambridge Drive, Geneva

Cost: Free