By Kath Gannaway
Wandin chainsaw sculptor Rob Bast has taken out his second consecutive Australian Chainsaw Carving Championship.
Bast competed against some of the best national and international chainsaw carvers at Mount Dandenong on Saturday 21 January to take the $3000 first prize with his incredible piece The Man from Snowy River as well as picking up the people’s choice award.
Bast was in his element with the theme for this year’s championships – Australiana.
“The Man From Snowy River is something that is very iconically Australian,” Bast said of his inspiration for the sculpture.
“I grew up with the movie and when I think of that I think of the high country and the bushmen,” he said.
Carved from one log, the sculpture depicts one of the most memorable scenes from the film “but the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head”, the heart-stopping, almost vertical ride down the mountainside.
The two paragraphs of A B ‘Banjo’ Patterson’s poem telling of that ride are written on the back of the sculpture.
Jeff Samudosky’s sculpture The Dance took second prize and Japan’s Kikaru Kodama, third prize with his piece called Elders With Family.
Rob Bast will be carving at the Seymour Alternative Farming Expo on 17-19 February.
