A tree stump at the Phelps Grove gardens in central Springfield is being transformed into a work of art. Already, there are two wooden hawks perched on top, and other creatures are being brought forth from the tree’s remnants.
The artist, Louis Medlock, offered me a seat under a small tent.
I keep forgetting to bring my guest seating, so I'd break out the milk crates every time somebody comes by and wants to talk," he said.
Well, thank you for welcoming me into your office," replied the reporter.
Medlock’s dog, Opie, came up to greet me, then disappeared under the coolness of a trailer.
"Even on the hot summer days, she wanted to come and sweat it out with me, yeah," said Medlock. "And you know, she would be pouty and really make it known that she wasn't happy about being left at home. And so, I take her with me everywhere."
As Opie hangs out nearby, Medlock works upon scaffolding to bring his masterpiece to life.
The project started when Connie Ryan and Fran Giglio who, along with Vicki Trippe, were instrumental in reviving the overgrown gardens, reached out to Medlock whose work they’d seen at Fassnight Creek Farm.
"Once they knew that the tree had to come down," he said, "they thought ahead. Well, what could we do with it rather than just, you know, lump it off at the ground and grind the stumps?"
His journey into wood sculpting began as an ice sculptor and chef at College of the Ozarks. His mentor Robert Strickland taught him to carve ice and encouraged him to enter competitions. That became his passion and, in 2020, he left a promising career as a chef with good benefits and vacation time and set out on a new path as a paid artist.
"I went to Detroit and worked as an ice sculptor there. So, you know, and then from there it was to Columbus, eventually made it to South Florida and spent three seasons down there as a seasonal sculptor, seasonal worker," said Medlock.
It didn’t bother him a bit that the work he created was gone too quickly.
"With ice sculpture, that's kind of one of the cooler parts about it, you know, it's just as unique as your event. You know, you're only going to have a 50th anniversary and that that carving is, you know, it's here, it's a big deal. And then it's gone just like your event...it'll never happen again," he said.
Medlock's work with the World Ice Hockey Championships allowed him to meet a lot of people, including sand carvers, pumpkin carvers and wood carvers.
"And I noticed that the wood carvers were just very, very proficient with the chainsaw," he said. "They could end up with a roughed out piece much faster than a lot of the ice carvers and so on. I just started asking questions why and realized that there was a lot to gain by learning what they knew how to do."
Plus, wood carving is something he could do in the summer while he carved ice in the winter. He still creates ice sculptures.
"I laugh because there's been several mornings, you know, I may get up at 4 in the morning and mill some ice and be covered in water and cold, you know, and then two hours later, when the sun comes out, I'm sweating and got sawdust on me," he said.
He’s happy to be back working in an area of Springfield that he knows well. He graduated from Parkview and grew up near Grant and Grand.
Medlock said he likes to create a lot of movement and negative space in his work and to tell a story without using words. The piece he’s creating at Phelps Grove Park will include various species that are found in and around the park, for instance, the two red-tailed hawks on top.
"And then underneath that is going to be a dragonfly, kind of a, I'm calling it the moon, but it's going to be...it can be the sun or the moon, whichever you decide out of that," he said. And around the back from there, it's going to be a couple of big owls, and you can see..."
"Great horned or barred owls?" asked the reporter.
"Barred owls is what you would see most of the time around here is the ladies are telling me," said Medlock. So, it's going to be barred owls. And a bunch of leaf work on either side of the owls, kind of, you know, draping downward over here will be a couple of large sunflowers. And let's see, the bottom on this side is going to be a fox. We're coming up here back into the leaf work, and then a little squirrel's nest right there."
There will be bees around the sunflowers. And Medlock wants to capture the movement of a squirrel running up a tree.
"The way they frolic and play around and...the way the tail follows the body and there's this graceful motion, I really want to capture that in there," he said. "So, instead, just the squirrel den, now there's going to be squirrels running around, try to really capture that circular motion that they do around the trees, you know, and when chasing each other and fighting or playing or whatever."
Here’s what he hopes the sculpture will mean for those who visit the park.
"Just enjoyment, you know. Art is beauty...and when you see someone just kind of stare at a piece and, you know, there's a calmness go over them and you know, it's adding something beautiful to the park, something unique," he said.
People are already curious. They’ll stop and watch Medlock at work and sometimes ask him questions.
He hopes to be finished by the end of the month.
