After the hot air balloons take flight this weekend, the art festival will offer amusement for those with their feet planted on the ground in Mancos.
From among the many talented local artists, the Mancos Arts Council picked Glynis Verrazzano to be the featured artist at the festival.
From smiling baby bears to realistic eagles, Verrazzano uses chain saws to carve all kinds of wildlife and scenes out of logs.
Art was never her strong suit, Verrazzano jokes that she can’t draw a straight line with a ruler, but when she first started carving with chain saws she knew she had found her niche.
“The wood speaks to you,” she said.
A career fire captain, Verrazzano has handled chainsaws all her life and now uses them to bring out the natural character in the wood.
“Pulling a piece of art out of log is amazing,” she said.
She was inspired by former Cortez artist Ken Brown. When she stopped to watch him working one day by chance in 2011, he offered to teach her a few things if she came back with her saw. She entered her first competition later that same year and has turned her hobby into a part-time business.
Some may remember her work from Mountain High Pizza in Lewis where it was displayed and sold
Recently, she was commissioned to carve themed furniture for several rooms at the Country West Motel.
She has made dressers, door-signs, benches and headboards that create a rustic atmosphere in the rooms that are otherwise generic. Each headboard bears a three-dimensional scene or character.
For example, a cabin and mountains stand out against the otherwise smooth surface in the Cabin Fever room.
Trish Strawn, the former owner of Mountain High Pizza and now the Country West manager asked Verrazzano to craft several pieces for the motel after it helped attract attention to her restaurant.
“It was huge for my business to have her work there,” she said,
She has found customers far prefer the themed rooms and request them. So far Verrazzano has done four of the rooms and Strawn said they plan to theme the rest of the rooms with her art in the spring.
You can find Verrazzano’s lovable stump bears and work from many other artists at the Art Fest will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday on Grand Avenue in Mancos.
