Woodpile Art: Owls, Trees and Pictures Built from Stacked Firewood

Stack firewood carefully enough and it can become a picture. In these woodpiles, pale cut ends and dark bark are arranged like pixels to form owls, a tree, a human figure and a broad-winged bird. Step back and the logs disappear into the image; step closer and it breaks apart into ordinary split wood.

How log-pile art works

Woodpile artists work with the colours the wood already has. The cut end of a log is light, bark is dark, and different species add their own shades, so sorting pieces by tone gives a palette of browns, creams and greys. Laying logs bark-side out creates dark areas; turning cut ends to the front creates light ones. Large pieces build the body of a figure, and small repeated pieces read as feathers, leaves or scales.

Owls are a favourite subject because two round eyes are enough to make the face recognisable. Once the eyes are in place, the surrounding logs read as plumage even though each piece is irregular.

Woodpile artists in New England

The craft has a following in New England. At Mass Audubon’s Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield, Massachusetts, property manager Richard Wolniewicz has added images to the sanctuary’s woodpile for several years. He built an owl with outstretched wings, outlined with darker black Amur corktree wood, and once used pale, barkless wood from a beaver-felled tree for an image of a tree. Visitors regularly pose for photos in front of it, though some see a bat or a butterfly in the owl.

In Vermont, the off-grid homesteaders Ben Servoz and Nicole Antal face their woodpile towards the road, and Servoz has built a fish and snake into it, then a maul and chopping block made from logs laid bark-side out. The Portland, Maine, potter Ayumi Horie even founded an International Society of Woodstack Enthusiasts for people who love a well-built pile.

Holz hausen and the Norwegian round

Beautiful stacking has a practical side too. The round, beehive-shaped stack known in German as a holz hausen (“wood house”) and in Norway as part of the vedstapling tradition dries firewood without a tarp or shed. The builder marks a ring of logs about six feet across, tilts the pieces slightly inwards and finishes with a peaked roof of bark-side-up pieces that sheds rain. The hollow centre works like a chimney, drawing air through the stack so the wood seasons well.

Rhode Island restoration builder Rob Cagnetta builds these rounds and decorates them with holiday lights; each stack holds about a cord of wood. The drawback is that pulling logs out of a round can bring it down, so it works best as a seasoning stack for next year’s fire.

Build and photograph your own woodpile picture

• Sketch a simple shape first: an owl, a heart, a tree or a letter works better than fine detail.
• Sort the logs into light cut ends, dark bark and mid tones before you start stacking.
• Build two rows deep and cross-stack the ends so the face stays stable as it grows.
• Photograph it twice: a wide frame where the image reads, and a close one that shows the logs.

Build on firm, level ground and keep the stack low enough to stay stable as wood is taken away in winter.

For another artwork made from many small, patient actions, explore Sonja Hinrichsen’s snow drawings, or compare the transparent forms of ice sculptures.

Related reading

• Piet Hein Eek’s Log-Clad Studio for Hans Liberg
• Dan Price’s Compact Oregon Dwelling: Space for an Artist’s Life

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