Community News

Celebrating the Arts at Mexico Point Park was scheduled to occur this spring on May 31st at Mexico Point Park.

We had planned a glorious festive day, on which everyone could admire the new, community designed, stained glass windows in Casey’s Cottage (completed in September 2019), participate in making their own stained glass lawn ornaments, painting their own canvas and enjoying the lovely drum and flute music of the Native Immigrants, with food trucks and ice cream to enjoy. The highlight of the day was to be a live chainsaw carving of William Casey himself, the sociology professor from Columbia University who, with his artist friend, Severin Bishop, transformed the carriage house of Mexico Point Club into an 11th century manor house with carvings of Renaissance era people on all the walls, stained glass windows, and an amazing stone fireplace that doubles as a sound chamber to amplify music.

Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic required the cancellation of Celebrating the Arts at Mexico Point Park, along with so many other events. The Friends of Mexico Point Park had already located and hired an excellent chainsaw artist, Jon Vincent Antonuk, and had received a grant from CNYArts to help pay for the carving, and Kevin Gates of Mid State Lawn and Tree Service had donated a large maple log, big enough to be carved into a life size statue of William Casey sitting on a bench reading a book. (The Friends of Mexico Point Park had been looking for such a log for several years!) The log was cut last October and had been seasoning all winter, so it was already hard for chainsaw carving (usually done in white pine); if it were left to season another year, it would become impossible for the chainsaw artist to carve.

Since delaying the chainsaw carving was not possible, the Friends of Mexico Point Park decided to go ahead with the carving of William Casey this spring. And since we couldn’t do it at a public event, we would share the experience of the carving with the public virtually through a video on our website (www.mexicopointpark.com). Kevin Gates of Mid State Lawn and Tree Service, moved the log to an undisclosed location away from the park, and we hired a talented videographer, Austin DeMott of Oswego, to videotape the carving and turn it into a movie. It took two very talented chainsaw artists and 19 chainsaws (of different shapes and sizes) to cut and shape the log into a life sized statue of William Casey sitting on a large corner bench with decorative sculptures depicting stacks of books at each end. Jon Vincent Antonuk worked on William Casey while his fellow chainsaw carver, Adam Mulholland, worked on the ends of the benches and assembling the bench. Austin DeMott filmed the process for three days and edited the footage to create a six minute video (with music!) showing the transformation of a an ungainly 3 ton log into an amazing piece of functional art. Indeed, the movie (which summarizes 3 days of carving) might actually be better than the amount of carving one would have been able to see during the 3-hour event we had planned. The finished sculpture was transported by Don and Linda Stein to its permanent location inside Casey’s Cottage. He looks right at home there!

When the Central New York Region reaches Phase 4 and it is safe for the public to visit, Casey’s Cottage will reopen and people can come and sit companionably on the bench with Dr. Casey while admiring his work in the rest of the cottage. Meanwhile, you can watch the creation of the statue at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9G06auINA4