Abel de Vicente, founder of "Equipo Hacha" has been linked to wood all his life and has participated in the University Days of the Pyrenees that are taking place this week in Barbastro, El Grado, Alquézar, Torreciudad and Graus. The artist from Soria has made thousands of chainsaw sculptures that decorate different places in Spain.
Abel comes from Covaleda in Soria and has been several times champion of the Vic International Open. He moves a lot internationally, especially in Latin America in the winters and in Spain during the summer.
How did your love for wood begin? Although, perhaps, it is more of a passion than a hobby.
Yes, I do. In the end I have a forestry company that I started when I was 14 years old working in the forest with a chainsaw and now I have my own company. Later, about twenty years ago, at a forestry fair I saw a man in France making a sculpture and I started with it. From then on, everything has been going smoothly. It's a passion; I spend all day with the chainsaw.
What support have you had?
My wife is the one who puts up with the noise and going out the most. I'm away from home all day long. Then there is the Stihl brand, with whom I have been working since 2002. I have a collaboration contract with them and they have given me all the support in machinery and organization.
What do you enjoy most about the process of turning a log into a figure?
When I have the figure already out. I always say that in ten cuts you have to see what I'm doing and I think that today, in ten cuts, you already knew what I was doing. That's what I like the most: when I go at full speed with the big chainsaw, I pull back and say "that's it". Then it's just detailing and detailing. I like the main cuts because after that it's all about the details.
What is the figure you have made the most times?
The eagle. I do an average of a hundred events a year and I do it at almost every one.
There is no eagle like it. No matter how much you want to, you can't get the same one... If you don't change the beak, you change the claw or the feathers. There is no one the same. This is not mechanical, it is manual. It is impossible to make two alike.
I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to do an exhibition in front of two hundred young university students. What was it like?
All very well. Surprised. When I was told it was for university students I had doubts about how it was going to go. I was surprised and very well received. Besides, the surroundings with the sanctuary of Torreciudad and the reservoir of El Grado, the truth is, it couldn't be nicer. It's all beautiful. I come here a lot because I am always called from Barbastro.
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