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The chainsaw. It’s not a piece of equipment you’d usually expect to find in an artist’s supply cupboard. Yet for Garry Turler, it’s his tool of choice.

Professional chainsaw carver Garry, discovered his talent for wood carving quite by chance.

He made the brave decision to give up the day job to follow his passion, and now goes to work every day with a smile on his face.

“I don’t know if people notice me being happier doing what I do now but I’ve certainly noticed a difference in myself,” said Garry.

“Leaving school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I followed the sort of work that my father did in engineering. I did an apprenticeship with a local firm.

“I left there, went to work with my father in my thirties but I was getting quite fed up with it; it just got repetitive and boring for me. My head wasn’t in that type of work.

“I had to find something and get out there and do something I enjoyed.”

Garry’s interest was piqued when he saw a friend’s wood carving, but starting a new business with a family to support was a daunting prospect.

“I discovered it first when a friend of mine brought a carving home. I looked at it and thought ‘maybe I could do that’. I took the carving he had, put my lump of wood next to it and just started making cuts with a saw,” he said.

“At the time of me starting this... the wife was worried about how I was going to get the money to make it work.

“I make sculptures of some sort from a log. So whether it’s a boar or an owl, I start with a log, plan it out, I study my subject.

“I make the big cuts first to block out and get everything smaller. And from there it’s all the detail work using different saws, different size saws, different tools to finish the product off.

“I use chainsaws because it’s quick to take the material away, it’s quick to get to where you want to go, plus it’s just... cool!”

Garry took a leap of faith in changing his career direction, and by believing in himself and his artistic passion...

“I think if there’s something you want to do in life, you’ve just got to go out and do it. There’s no right time to do it. I had to make sacrifices to do what I wanted to do. It was either that or be stuck doing something I was unhappy with for the rest of my life,” he said.

“I think now it's just pushing myself to improve, to get better, to make things look more realistic and to keep looking forward to the next big project that I’ve got coming up.

“Don’t think it’s ever too late to pursue something you want to do. We all need money to pay our bills but money isn’t everything. Being rich isn’t about money either.”