No one said anything when Dennis Baba began turning the stump of a South Land Park tree into a roughly 4-foot-tall squirrel.<\/p>\n
A company had taken down a silver maple tree in the front yard of a South Land Park Drive home near 43rd Avenue in January. Homeowners Laura and Dave Bell commissioned Baba, who began making chainsaw art carvings in 2024, to transform the stump in late April.<\/p>\n
When the project became clear to people passing by, they started stopping to watch. Some people even made multiple trips.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time in my life I ever felt like a celebrity,\u201d Baba said. \u201cKids were taking photos. I ran out of business cards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sacramento is nicknamed the \u201cCity of Trees,\u201d boasting somewhere around a million trees. Within the city\u2019s broad canopy, though, the Bells aren\u2019t the only people to have had an old or dying tree turned into public art. And Baba\u2019s not the only person to capture public imagination by doing it.<\/p>\n
A goddess for Jan Tamayo<\/p>\n
In the front yard of Jan Tamayo\u2019s Tahoe Park home, the remains of a Chinese hackberry tree have been carved into a roughly nine-foot tall goddess.<\/p>\n
Tamayo said the statue is named Praebet.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe feels powerful to me,\u201d Tamayo said. \u201cIndependent. Strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Art trees weren\u2019t exactly a trend in Sacramento when artist Crystal Lockwood and her now-husband Thomas Hamilton spent two weeks living out of a 22-foot Chevy Lazy Daze RV outside Tamayo\u2019s home in the mid-late 2010s to create Praebet for $5,000.<\/p>\n
But, as it went with Baba, people took interest as they saw Lockwood and Hamilton creating a carving in the front yard of a home near a busy street.<\/p>\n
![\"Before](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Outlook-qo541byx.jpg\" "\\"Outlook-qo541byx.jpg\\"")
Before and after photos of \u201cPraebet,\u201d a tree sculpture carved by artists Crystal Lockwood and Thomas Hamilton that stands in Jan Tamayo\u2019s front yard in Sacramento\u2019s Tahoe Park neighborhood. Courtesy Jan Tamayo <\/p>\n
Some of it might have been the spectacle of the creation process, which involved up to 15 feet of scaffolding that Lockwood and Hamilton could climb like stairs. They used Dremel tools and chainsaws that they sometimes wielded simultaneously depending on where each of them was in the scaffolding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of attention to it,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cEverybody driving by would be like, \u2018Wow, that\u2019s great. What is that? It\u2019s a goddess. Oh my God, thank you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
For months after, Tamayo brought Lockwood\u2019s business card to people she saw checking out Praebet. Lockwood\u2019s phone number is at the base of the statue.<\/p>\n
Since doing the job for Tamayo, she and Hamilton have created dragons at an East Sacramento home and carved a waitress out of an old tree at Jim Denny\u2019s diner in downtown Sacramento. The waitress carving tree later had to be cut down because it was hollow, Lockwood said.<\/p>\n
Though she and Hamilton now live in Washington state, she still gets calls about the statue she created for Tamayo. Lockwood estimates she gets up to three calls per month related to the statue.<\/p>\n
Among the people to view the statue was a member of the Bell family. The family was deciding what to do with the silver maple tree. Laura Bell said that during the pandemic, while her children attended college from home while she and her husband each worked remotely, the tree became a source of comfort.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the hollow branches, there was a family of squirrels,\u201d she said. \u201cSquirrels have two or three litters every year. And so we got to watch lots of baby squirrels being raised in that tree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, branches from the street were extending over South Land Park Drive and were coming down. A tree company deemed the tree unsafe and removed most of it, leaving a roughly seven-foot-tall stump. That primed it for its next life, which can carry benefits for both the public and local wildlife.<\/p>\n
Jessica Sanders, the executive director of Sacramento Tree Foundation, said stumps could be used as habitats for snags, owls or other wildlife. \u201cIt\u2019s a great way to honor a tree\u2019s legacy, if it has to come out because it\u2019s reached the end of its life or for safety,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n
Laura Bell said that while her daughter found out about Tamayo\u2019s tree, she discovered Baba online. Baba, a Granite Bay resident who has a day job and does carving in his spare time, asked just $1,500 for the job. \u201cMost chainsaw artists charge a lot more,\u201d Laura Bell said.<\/p>\n
The family contemplated having the tree carved into a tomato, in honor of the city\u2019s nickname of \u201cSacra-tomato.\u201d They settled on a squirrel that has been nicknamed Butchy, the name of a character from bedtime stories told to Dave Bell when he was a child by his father.<\/p>\n
![\"Laura](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SAC_7827_CarvedSquirrel_HA_260511.JPG\" "\\"SAC_7827_CarvedSquirrel_HA_260511.JPG\\"")
Laura Bell stands in her front yard on South Land Park Drive in Sacramento earlier this month next to Butchy the squirrel, a sculpture that was carved out of a diseased silver maple tree with a chainsaw. Bell and her husband commissioned artist Dennis Baba to create the carving. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com What tree carvings mean to people<\/p>\n
Dave Bell said that people stopped to talk with Baba all day each day of the job. He was supposed to finish at noon on the second day of the two-day job because of how many people wanted to talk with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just very exciting to me to see kind of people\u2019s reaction,\u201d Dave Bell said. \u201cThey just snap their head and that big smile comes on their face. Lots of families driving by and you can hear the kids talking about the squirrels.\u201d<\/p>\n
The finished results can have different meanings for people.<\/p>\n
Former Sacramento City Councilmember Ray Tretheway, who served as Sacramento Tree Foundation\u2019s executive director for about 30 years, also said that it was important to do no harm to trees. But he said that it could be \u201ca wonderful second life\u201d for a tree to be turned into art.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people might look at it and say, \u2018You know what, that tree out there was their best friend for decades and it continues on,\u2019\u201d Tretheway said. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty strong message.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tamayo and Lockwood met when Lockwood was carving a bunny out of a tree at a home near Fairfield for an elderly widower whose wife was nicknamed Bunny.<\/p>\n
Lockwood, who focused more on fine art for much of her career, initially refused the job for the widower. After he explained that the tree she would be carving was his late wife\u2019s favorite, Lockwood tearfully agreed to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could sit in his favorite chair and look out at the bunny every day and then think of his wife,\u201d Lockwood said.<\/p>\n
![\"Profile](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SAC_4089_GrahamWomack_HA_250908.jpg\")