Lake County >> Scroll saw work is a unique art form. It utilizes negative space as an artist uses a miniscule saw to carve intricate patterns, words and images from a smooth, flat piece of wood. One slip of the hand and they can ruin a design — and their fingers.
Despite all this, Linda Pyers wasn’t the least bit intimidated when she first saw a woman using a scroll saw on television. Pyers decided that if someone else could do it, so could she.
But she wasn’t a complete newbie to woodwork. Before moving to Lake County and picking up a scroll saw, Pyers lived in San Jose, where she bought a hand saw after her retirement and began to create her own yard art. She described her descent into the intricacies of wood art as a slow progression. She was constructing yard art when she moved up to Lake County, bought a home to renovate and inherited a pile of wood with the house. The wood was all about the size of a drawer and perfect for scroll saw work.
Though it may seem difficult, Pyers said learning the basics of a scroll saw wasn’t more challenging than learning to sew. “Getting used to a power tool is one dimension of it,” she explained.
Pyers first had to master sawing on a curve, then she moved to circles. Surprisingly, the most difficult pieces are those that involve straight lines, since the thin blade wobbles so easily.
“I think the hardest thing I did were puzzles because they’re so, so tiny,” Pyers said. “I did a puzzle once for the fair and it was the size of my hand. It was real important to stay on the line.”
In addition to the scroll saw, Pyers also had to master other tools, like a drill press and a belt sander. But she’s not done figuring everything out. Perhaps she never will be. “I try to challenge myself. There’s some new things I want to learn. I’m always learning,” she said. “Some work is intimidating, that’s why I want to learn how to do it, I want to master it.”
There are a number of reasons Pyers enjoys the scroll saw. It’s about succeeding with the power tools and the satisfaction of a finished product. She loves that she can see something in a magazine and recreate it herself. She also finds joy in retreating to her garage for quiet time, just herself, her thoughts and the saw. And then if the piece is a gift, there’s the knowledge that her work is extra special.
And maybe genetics have something to do with the scroll saw’s appeal. “My father was a carpenter and he had an appreciation for wood and the grain in the wood so he probably instilled it in me,” Pyers said. “I just like working with the wood.”
Christian themes hold a great deal of inspiration. Pyers carves plenty of words, versus and crosses. Her work is usually based off patterns clipped from a scroll saw magazine. But she’s recently had to take a step back and examine what she can realistically make. She used to saw anything that caught her eye, but she can’t really do that anymore. She’ll make a set of coasters and a napkin holder, because they’re practical and useful. Other items that are purely aesthetic sometimes have to be ignored. Where would she put everything?
Though the work is detailed and intricate, she can finish her pieces within a week, without even working for hours on end each day. If she worked straight through, she could complete something in a day (though her back would be aching by the end of it). She chalks her speed up to ten years of experience. How quickly she works depends on the thickness of the wood and the specifics of what she’s working on. “The crosses, sometimes it will take me much longer than that. It depends on how long you stand at the machine. Life happens,” Pyers explained. “It’s not a job. I don’t sit at it and work 8 hours.”
Volunteer work is a large part of Pyers life, so things often do pop up which cause her to push her scroll sawing to the side. She works on her art all year long, but in sporadic spurts. “If it was a perfect world I would be out there four or five days a week,” she said. “I work on things as I have time.”
Pyers has sold pieces here and there, but she tends to just give her work away. “My friends are so used to getting Christmas ornaments, they have their own collections,” she said.
She confided that a friend wants to buy the piece she’s working on right now, but she’s refusing to sell it — she’s simply giving it to them.
The veterans building has also seen some of her work. She’s sawed “thank you for your service” and “God bless the vets” and given them away to the organization. She’s thinking about doing something similar for hospice patients.
She often enters her work in the fair and she’s thought about selling it at the Lake County Arts Council Main Street Gallery in Lakeport, but she gifts so many pieces that she never has enough to actually sell anything. Also, Pyers added, “it’s hard to price your art.”
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
