SC wood carver gives new life to fallen trees along Cayce Riverwalk

If you spy the face of a bobcat carved into a fallen cottonwood tree on the Cayce Riverwalk trail, thank a high school art teacher by the name of Miss Knight.

She saw something in Wade Geddings, when he was a teenager, that others teachers did not.

“I was a bit of a creative daydreamer in school,” the 41-year-old Geddings said. “Miss Knight was one of the few teachers who dug my brain. I mean, I’ve got shapes in my head, not words. All of the other teachers were like, ‘Just learn this and take the test.’ Not Miss Knight.”

So, kudos to Miss K.

It’s hardly a stretch to say that an assortment of delightful creatures – bobcats, racoons, turtles, owls, salamanders and foxes – which, with a chainsaw, Geddings is carving into fallen “dead wood” alongside the paths of the Cayce Riverwalk – is testimony to the discerning teacher.

On a recent Friday morning, Geddings stood back from the old cottonwood and considered his pallet – the smooth, blond trunk of the dead tree. “I can look at something and see what’s there and then see what could be there. I mean, where it lays, I turn it into art.”

He put his earbuds in. “I listen to everything. Hip-hop. Classic rock. Dance. The Beastie Boys and the Bee Gees.”

He yanked on the cord of his Stihl chainsaw. It howled to life.

What progressed over the next hour was the curiosity of passers-by as they considered the shower of wood chips into the air; the whine of the chainsaw biting into the wood; the skill of a self-taught artist and the evolution of a bobcat.

Brandon Barnette, who works for the city of Cayce, sat in an ATV nearby. “I make sure Wade is safe. If he gets cut, I’ll be getting him out of here.”

I asked Barnette whether he had learned anything from watching Geddings. He grinned. “Oh, I’ve learned a lot. How to carve and stuff. I could probably cut a hole in a log now, but no, I ain’t got the talent Wade’s got.”

Talent. It can be a hungry thing. For Geddings, it ate at him as a younger guy spending time in Colorado.

“There was a place that did chainsaw sculptures. Every time I drove by there, it was just eating at me. For some reason, I felt like I could do that.”

Geddings finally talked to the proprietor of the place. He told Geddings to give it a try.

“The guy said, ‘Just don’t cut your arm off,’ and I got started. I made some mushrooms and pumpkins and holiday pieces and it just went from there.”

So “there” is now the Cayce Riverwalk, part of the larger Three Rivers Greenway – three riverwalks in the region where the Saluda and Broad rivers meet to form the Congaree River.

A year or so ago, Geddings approached the city about his work and was commissioned by Cayce’s Beautification Foundation to sculpt 12 pieces. Some of the fallen trees he works on came down during the 2015 floods.

Riverwalk park ranger Johnny Ringo said children are especially loving the sculptures. “It’s a game to the kids, trying to find all of them.”

But not a game to Geddings. He works at odd jobs – “I’m kind of everybody’s helper” – but hopes to turn his sculpting into “a full-time gig.”

He studies the shapes of animals – especially their heads – and then practices his craft on odd pieces of wood before committing his chainsaw to a permanent place, like a fallen tree.

And even then, things don’t always work out.

“I’ll do a dry run just to make sure I know what I’m doing. I have to make sure the form is in my mind. Sometimes I’ll saw off something that I shouldn’t have and it’s a booger of a moment, but it does happen. I’ve had material fail on me. Running into rotten wood, a metal spike, or a nail from long ago. The chainsaw is going to lose that battle.”

Geddings wiped his hands on a pair of protective chaps he was wearing. “They’re definitely not for fashion,” he laughed.

Then he looked at the sun, which had climbed higher in the sky.

“With all this canopy, and the sun coming in and out, my creatures change every half hour or so. The other day I watched an older couple looking at a fox. It was kind of shimmering in the sun and shadows. They stopped for a second and finally realized it was a carving. But just for a moment, it got ’em.”

And if you go see Geddings’ work, I bet it will get you too.

This story was originally published April 27, 2017 at 10:59 AM with the headline "SC wood carver gives new life to fallen trees along Cayce Riverwalk."