QUITMAN — They wave to you as you pass their home, just a friendly bunch of bears willing to share their “hunny” if you want to invest the time for a visit.
“The Bear House,” as Larry Carter’s home is affectionately known by locals, is on Rose Bud Road, also known as Arkansas 124. It is where he grew up. In fact, his old home place still stands near the road, andhis new home is on the Carter family’s old garden spot.
“We were in Eureka Spr i ngsabout 15 years ago, and I saw some bears like this for sale,” Carter said as he sat on his porch, shading his eyes from the setting sun.
“I thought, ‘I can do that.’ I took some pictures and came back and started one.”
Today, 10 bears - two of them with little bears on their bellies - stand on the large well-groomed lawn, along with an owl, an eagle, a diamond and a crane.
The owner of Carter’s Hardware in Shirley, Carter, 71, and his wife, Donna, will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next year. They have seven grandchildren whoenjoy visiting their grandparents’ rural home and being greeted by the friendly group.
“They love ’em,” Carter said of the kids’ reaction to the sculptures.
“We have people that stop and walk out there and take pictures. I think the public enjoys seeing them.”
Carter’s father, Roy Lee Carter, graduated from Quitman High School in 1928, and Larry Carter graduated from the same school exactly 30 years later.
Carter’s career has been in retail, working for Magic Mart, Sterling Stores and Walmart, among others.
The technical part of Carter’s art is not complicated, although some chain-saw artists use more equipment to finish their work.
Using a 20-inch Stihl chain saw with a regular bar, Carter begins with a living cedar. In about four hours, he creates the yard art, often spreading the work over several sessions.
“I cut everything away that doesn’t look like a bear,” Carter said, chuckling.
Carter first squares off the basic area of the bear, then cuts off the corners as needed.
“If you make a very large mistake with a chain saw, there’s no correcting it, so you’ve got to be pretty careful,” Carter said.
“The stumps are in the ground, so they’re going to be there a long time.”
Carter treats the finishedwork annually with CWF wood stain - a product used primarily on decks, fences and siding - to protect the sculptures from ultraviolet rays.
Walking toward his field of bears, Carter pauses to point at apples a few feet above his head in a tree and makes a dry comment.
“I did those apples, too,” Carter jokes. “They were pretty hard.”
Other fruit trees and bushes dot the landscape,but Carter said all he did was plant them: peaches, pecans, pears, apricots, plums, blueberries and blackberries.
Even a pair of almond trees, rare in this part of Arkansas, can be seen in his backyard.
Carter said his chain-saw art is just a hobby and is only done in his yard for his family to enjoy.
So don’t be surprised if you’re traveling down this back highway enjoying theOzark foothills and see those bears waving alongside a man with a chain saw throwing wood chips every whichway. One stump is waiting to be cut, and Carter thinks it might contain another eagle, ready to be released.
Three Rivers, Pages 51 on 05/31/2012