{"id":626241,"date":"2026-10-10T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T09:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626241\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T09:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T09:04:10","slug":"carve-wars-contributes-art-to-minot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626241\/","title":{"rendered":"Carve Wars contributes art to Minot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arts and Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Gallery<\/p>\n

HANNAH VELASQUEZ\/MDN
\nFrom the left, Marina Cole and Joe Wenal work on the angel sculptures wings on Friday, Oct. 9, as an observer watches.<\/p>\n

\"Gallery<\/p>\n

HANNAH VELASQUEZ\/MDN
\nJeff Coss puts the final touches on his sculpture on Friday, Oct. 9.<\/p>\n

\"Gallery<\/p>\n

HANNAH VELASQUEZ\/MDN
\nWyatt Harrison’s sculpture of bears roasting marshmallows will be displayed in the city. Oct. 9.<\/p>\n

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close \u2715<\/p>\n

\"Gallery<\/p>\n

HANNAH VELASQUEZ\/MDN
\nFrom the left, Marina Cole and Joe Wenal work on the angel sculptures wings on Friday, Oct. 9, as an observer watches.<\/p>\n

\"Gallery<\/p>\n

HANNAH VELASQUEZ\/MDN
\nJeff Coss puts the final touches on his sculpture on Friday, Oct. 9.<\/p>\n

\"Gallery<\/p>\n

HANNAH VELASQUEZ\/MDN
\nWyatt Harrison’s sculpture of bears roasting marshmallows will be displayed in the city. Oct. 9.<\/p>\n

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Minot\u2019s first ever Carve Wars took place Tuesday-Saturday, Oct. 6-10, at the Minot Moose Lodge, where the public was invited to watch five artists over five days create large-scale sculptures that will become a permanent display in the community. <\/p>\n

While Carve Wars competition is usually based on speed, Minot\u2019s event focused on craftsmanship, with the winner determined by the public\u2019s vote on Saturday, Oct. 10. The event included a Quick Carve on Oct. 8-9. The smaller sculptures from the quick carve competition are up for auction on Saturday. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been great,\u201d Joe Wanel, creator of Cave Wars, said Friday. \u201cLots of people have been coming out, watching and checking everything out – looking forward to tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Wanel, the five sculptures that will be displayed around the city include the campfire bears, the raptor, the Native American, the angel and the swimming fish.<\/p>\n

Carve Wars started 15 years ago and is a traveling art competition that visits towns around the United States. The carvers showcasing their skills in Minot are Marina Cole from Canada, Wyatt Harrison from New Jersey, Jeff Coss from Iowa, Justin Driver from Kentucky and Brigitte Lockhead from Canada. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just good to see some of these guys again,\u201d Wanel said. \u201cSometimes I get to see them all multiple times a year. Some I don\u2019t get to see them once a year, so just getting together and doing this is probably my favorite part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wanel is an award-winning chainsaw artist of 20 years and began with making furniture. As interested buyers requested more intricate works he started sculpture carving. The competition itself started because of Wanel\u2019s own experiences. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first got really into carving and doing competitions, I went to a few that weren\u2019t run too well and they didn\u2019t make money,\u201d Wanel said. \u201cI said, \u2018Oh, I could do this,\u2019 and just started doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The logs being used for the sculptures came from cut-down trees collected as part of the city\u2019s flood management efforts to reuse and reduce waste. Carve Wars is sponsored by the Minot Area Council of the Arts and 2000 Trees for Minot. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d Wanel said. \u201cFor us, even when we\u2019re at our shops or in competitions, when we see a piece of scrap, we\u2019re like, \u2018We can put a piece of art into that.\u2019 Then somebody takes it home to enjoy, so it\u2019s definitely the best-case scenario, especially in a situation like this where those trees had to come down. This way they can carry on as a piece of art around here.\u201d<\/p>\n

EmmaKay Poling, staff writer, contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arts and Entertainment HANNAH VELASQUEZ\/MDN From the left, Marina Cole and Joe Wenal work on the angel sculptures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-626241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}