Give Christian Smith a saw and a log and he’ll have bears coming out of the woodwork in no time.

Smith, a Marion native and current New Bedford resident, has made a career out of carving wood using a chainsaw. With the saw and a piece of freshly fallen timber, he can create bears, birds, moose, Santa, giraffes and, of course, bulldogs.

“Bears are traditional in the genre of chainsaw carving,” said Smith, who made his first carving in 1997 while living in New Mexico.

Smith picked up the skill from another chainsaw carver there and has since made thousands of wooden sculptures on the South Coast, in New Mexico, Texas and Florida using his “crude instruments."

“Most wood is recycled from leftovers – cleared lots or stuff that sawmills can’t use, rather than see it go in the dumpster,” he said. “I don’t cut [down] trees. I like trees the way they are, which is funny for me right? If they have to get cut down, I’ll cut them into something beautiful.”

For a number of years, Smith did carvings full time with his business Living Timber Chainsaw Carving, performing live demonstrations in front of the Yankee Clipper in Marion and Edaville USA in Carver.

During that time, Smith said his record for whipping out a new piece was six minutes without anything more than an image in his mind.

“When I was doing it everyday, and I was thirty something, I could do it pretty darn quick,” he said.

Smith says he has slowed down some, but he can still finish many pieces in 15 minutes, and most in under an hour. For sea creatures like dolphins, Smith will also sand down the sculptures and varnish them.

The pieces range in size, with one of the bigger pieces being a larger than life bulldog at the entrance to his alma mater, Old Rochester Regional High School.

Bears are a big seller for Smith, but he often does custom orders, some of them on the non-traditional side.

“I’ve had no shortage of strange requests,” said Smith.

He has made an eight-foot tall ice cream cone, and was once commissioned to carve a sculpture of two people au naturel on the beach. The customer was happy with it, but Smith said he prefers not to do exact representations of people.

These days, Smith works full time restoring yachts at Buzzards Bay Yacht Services in Mattapoisett, but carving is still a big part of his life.

He recently became an “artist in residence” at Mattapoisett’s Wyandotte Farm, owned by Michael and Elizabeth King, where the chickens are happy to have extra wood shavings for their coop.

He also enjoys making his sculptures with an audience so they can see the process.

“Making art isn’t necessarily that publicly accessible,” he said.

Smith will do a demonstration at the next AHA! night in New Bedford on Dec. 11. His work will be available at the Mattapoisett Farmers Market on Dec. 13 at Old Rochester Regional Junior High and at Wyandotte Farm, 88 Marion Rd, Mattapoisett.

To contact Smith, call 508-971-6598 or visit his Facebook page, Living Timber Chainsaw Carving.