Why do I include chainsaws in my art?

I am often asked why I included a chainsaw in this print:

I wanted to create a wallpaper design that depicted the forest. Something crowded and dark, like the woods. I started collecting visual elements that I could include.

I used spruce/fir twigs, needles, and cones to make up the bulk of the pattern, but between them I tucked leaves (both fresh and fallen), chanterelle mushrooms, a weasel, a hare, a partridge, violets, a stump, tree trunks, a ghost plant, and fiddleheads. But while I wanted to make an image that was both beautiful and decorative, I didn’t want to depict only pretty and pleasant things. Sometimes when you enter the woods, you’re overwhelmed by blackflies or mosquitos. So I put them in there as well.

I made this print while I was living in Toronto. I got the impression that most of the people I knew there, and in the years I’d spent at university before that, thought of the forest as a pure and pristine sanctuary, a retreat from the working and material worlds. This was interesting to me, because in my experience, the woods were also a place of work, and a place that was filled with signs and remnants of human activity. My father and most of my male relatives worked in the woods, and when I explored the forest, I always found signs of human activity: ATV trails, the foundations of old farmhouses, blazed property lines, trash, and plenty of flagging tape. My intent was to represent the woods as I knew them, so to omit this human presence would feel artificial, like I was sanitizing my subject to fit someone else’s view of it. In my mind, the question isn’t Why did you include a chainsaw, it's Why didn’t you exclude it?

(By the way, the chainsaw isn't the only sign of human activity, I also included a curl of flagging tape.)

So that’s why I drew the chainsaw. But now that it’s there, what is it doing? How does it function in the art? I think it's doing two things: providing contrast and delight.

• I’m always interested in creating contrasts in my art: between the beautiful and ugly, natural and mechanical, growth and destruction, and the chainsaw helps to bring all of these to mind.

• I showed this print often this summer at farmers markets, and the reactions I received were mostly focused on the chainsaw. I got the impression that many people were surprised and delighted to see a bit of themselves depicted in the art - it’s not just about the purity of nature, it’s also about the people who work there.