Carving out a new life

Hank Chiappetta might have created his first piece of art some 30 years ago, were it not for the artists.

"Most artists I'd met were very impolite and unsocial," he says. "It turned me off really quick."

Forsaking his childhood desire to create, Chiappetta worked an assortment of jobs that never really filled that hole.

The car wreck in 1992 that took away his ability to work and nearly took his life may or may not have been serendipitous. Chiappetta chooses not to think about it.

But it's hard to ignore the fact that for the first time in his 49 years, he's truly found his niche.

Two years ago this September the Mead resident made a choice: Spend the rest of his life mired in bitterness or pursue his lifelong yearning to become an artist.

Without having read any books or attended a single class on the subject, Chiappetta bought a $9 set of chisels and started carving wood into art.

"Everybody has a different theory on carving," he said. "I figured the only way to learn is to just take the tools and do it."

Unable to afford quality wood, Chiappetta used large branches fallen from trees and carved them into walking sticks and garden posts. Without an ounce of previous training -- his most recent job before the accident had been as a custodian at a local school -- Chiappetta was amazed to learn he was a natural.

Looking at his work, which has broadened into fireplace mantels, doors and, soon he hopes, staircases, it's hard to believe he's carved for only two years. His pieces are eye candy, filled with details one could only see after the second or third time. They feature Pacific Northwest wildlife imagery, paying homage to nature he so strongly respects, Chiappetta says.

"I love flowers and leaves," he said, carving a rosette into a recent piece. "One guy said my work was too busy, that no one would look at it, so I decided to make it twice as busy.

"I like to look at a piece of wood and see many things in it. I swear, sometimes when I look at (a finished work) I have to ask myself if I carved it, because I don't remember doing all this stuff."

Chiappetta points at a log he's turning into a stool. "I look at the knots on that and think, `That's a bear.'" He puts the final touches on the knot, using a makeshift mallet (made of a hardwood) and a small chisel. Sure enough, it's a bear.

"It was just sitting in the wood and all it needed was a little carving to bring it out."

Chiappetta also realized how creating benefited his mental health.

"I was mad," he laughs. "Mad at the world. Mad that I had lost my job. I couldn't work and I was on Social Security." Married with four children, Chiappetta often worked two, sometimes three jobs to make a living. The $800,000 settlement he won from the car wreck has never been collected, as no one can find the defendant.

"I found out that I have a lot of hostility at the things that had happened, and this is one way to get it out," he says with a smile.

When his car was T-boned at 80 mph in an intersection, Chiappetta suffered intense nerve damage in his legs and back, which included a fractured vertebrae. It hurts to walk. His feet are often numb. For a long time he couldn't even stand up. He was prescribed a non- narcotic pain reliever, which he never takes when he works.

Instead, he carves on his well-worn knees until he's too sore to stand up.

The amiable glint in his eye and bright smile on his face masks another of Chiappetta's struggles: He's been ridiculed most his life for the double-whammy of being a diagnosed manic-depressive with attention deficit disorder.

"The first thing I'm asked is how much crank I use," he says, humorlessly. His speech and body language are often hyperkinetic. Chiappetta starts most sentences with a loud voice that quickly trickles down to nearly a whisper.

"People think I'm all speeded up in the brain, but I'm not. It's just me, it's who I am, and if you don't like it, lump it."

Yet through carving, sharing his art and meeting people, Chiappetta has built a number of strong relationships. Three stores in Spokane carry his work - Art Conscious Framing, at 12114 E. Sprague, Revival Lighting, 221 N. Division, and Zulu Tango Antiques, 14 W. Main - with more on the way.

"Most of the stuff we carry is vintage style, one-of-a-kind," said Janine Vaughn, co-owner of Revival Lighting. "Hank's work has a unique, old-world feel. Each piece is totally unique."

Chiappetta also regularly attends the Liberty Lake farmers' market, where he's talked with more people about his art in a day than in the prior two years.

And perhaps most unexpectedly, he's learned that most artists today aren't as bad as they used to be. "They've changed. We actually have artists who talk to each other," he says of his burgeoning relationships with other artists - carvers, illustrators and writers.

Barely two years into his belated profession, Chiappetta has high hopes of opening a home craftsman's shop with a system of pulleys and levers to preserve his back. He yearns for the pre-television days where intricately carved mantelpieces sparked conversations, and he wants to bring back that lost art.

But it takes money to make money, and Chiappetta's learned the costs of being an artist.

"One guy in a bar offered me a dollar (for a walking stick) and told me it was 50 cents more than it was worth," he said. Considering the 30-40 hours he puts into a hand-carved piece, $200 is more like it.

Chiappetta admits he's given away far more than he's sold, particularly walking sticks for disabled people ("I'm a sucker for that," he says), but the farmers' market, a recent Web site at www.nwartists.com, and the growing number of shops taking his work ensures Chiappetta's art will endure - which is the most an artist can hope for.

"I don't know if (carving) changed me as a person, but it gives me an outlook on life that maybe I'm leaving something for someone, and it's not a bad name or a bad attitude."

This sidebar appeared with the story:

TO HELP

Donating wood

Hank Chiappetta would love to carve bigger, more intricate work, but Social Security can only go so far for a married man with four children.

But he won't chop a tree down for its wood. Instead, Chiappetta roams neighborhoods looking for fallen trees that may yield good material.

"I hate to see a really nice piece of wood lay on the ground and rot," he says.

Chiappetta asks people for wood they're not using, and he doesn't mean scrap wood. He needs big pieces of hard wood like ash, beech, walnut and oak.

Wood purchased from a hardware store doesn't work, he learned, since it's treated with potentially harmful chemicals.

Anyone wishing to make a donation can call Chiappetta at 466- 5200.

Copyright 2002 Cowles Publishing Company
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.