Photos by TERRI WATTS

Ryan Huber found a therapeutic outlet through the art of chainsaw carving.

Artist Ryan Huber can bring his customers’ creative visions to life with a chainsaw and a piece wood. His carved creations can currently be found under the moniker Huber Hallow.

Much like the wood that he works with, Huber underwent an amazing transformation of his own. By taking a little time for introspection and creativity, he was able to carve out a better future for himself.

Huber moved to Harney County in 1992 and graduated from Burns High School in 1998. Before finding his niche as an artist, he was employed as a traveling fiber optic installer. He later returned to Burns and — through Trent Tiller and Wagner’s Furniture — he learned about flooring and carpet installation, eventually leading him to operate his own flooring business.

Huber was hired to do a flooring job at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016, which is when the occupation occurred. Unfortunately, he said his stress level got to the point that he didn’t know how to cope, causing his subsequent decent into “a very dark place.”

He eventually sought mental-health counseling, and with the help of his counselor, Carol Adams, he began pulling himself out of that dark place and was able to get his life back on track.

“Without Carol’s help, I don’t think I’d have survived much longer,” Huber said. “I wasn’t eating. I couldn’t sleep. I was doing things I shouldn’t have been doing. But at that point, I just didn’t care, and I didn’t see how much my being like [that] was not just hurting me but also the people who loved me.”

Without the encouragement of his counselor, Huber might not have discovered how much talent he had inside of himself that was just waiting to be released.

“Carol encouraged me to find an outlet, along with my counseling sessions, to get away from all the struggles I was going through in my life at the time,” Huber said. “Once I began using a chainsaw as a tool to create works of art, I allowed myself to start living life again because I realized I wanted beautiful things in my life, and being able to take a piece of wood and a chainsaw to create the art I began to create brought that beauty into my life.”

Depending on the level of detail, Huber can complete most smaller carvings in an hour or two. Larger carvings, which he considers to be anything over 10 feet, generally take him about five days.

Huber’s one-of-a-kind creations can be purchased locally at the Hines Pine Mill House and at Outlaw Wood Products. His carvings can also be found at Timeless Treasures in Payette, Idaho and throughout the Ontario area.

However, Huber said one of his greatest joys is setting up shop on the side of the road, as this allows him to interact with people directly. He said, oftentimes, folks visiting his pop-up shop share their own struggles as well as triumphant tales of how they’ve learned to overcome hardship in their own lives.

“It isn’t about these people buying my art,” Huber said. “It’s about being able to help each other through the insanity that this world has become.”

In addition to woodworking, Huber has found a creative outlet through music.

“When I was younger, I learned to play the guitar, but never pursued furthering myself musically, but once I began chainsaw carving as therapy, music became another outlet for me to release the stress weighing me down.”

Huber recently sat down and wrote numerous songs, which he hopes to record and share with others some day.

Although he felt hopeless at the time, Huber said reaching his “rock bottom” helped him open his eyes to all the beauty that the world has to offer. He is now happy with who he is and where he’s at in his life.

Huber is currently working out of a shop inside the Outlaw Wood Products Sawmill, but he hopes to open his own shop in the near future, which he plans to name Carver’s Corner.

You can contact Huber at (541) 951-9771 for further information about his art and availability.