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Home > Archive > Apr 3, 2008

Dances With Wood
By Cami Cox
Staff Writer
A local man is carving out his own niche in the world with a unique take on artistic woodworking.
Daniel Pettegrew, originally of Salt Lake, first became a Southern Utahan about 16 years ago. He founded, designed and built Xetava Gardens – a gourmet coffeehouse, café and gift shop in Kayenta – and it was there that he first discovered wood sculpting.
“I just felt connected to the wood. It was, like, calling to me. I know it sounds weird,” Pettegrew said, “but I remember the first carving I did was a door in Xetava, and I just didn't know if it was going to look silly or stupid or if people would think I was weird or something, and I was kind of scared. I thought, 'This is just weird. Nobody's ever really done this.'”
With an artistic background in graphic design and illustration, Pettegrew decided to try his hand at carving to create accents and detail pieces for Xetava, though he had never worked with wood before. He took a new route with his artistry, employing a method he had never seen used.
Using power tools (primarily an angle grinder with a sanding disc), Pettegrew began sculpting wood pieces to adorn his shop, carving images and designs out of large timbers of wood and transforming them into sculptures, accents and art pieces for Xetava. He also created the double doors, carved with an intricate sun-moon-stars design, that still greet Xetava customers today at the shop's entrance.
Pettegrew carved a lot symbolic elements into his work, with images that relate to the earth and nature and the local environment. In giving his business some handcrafted, earthy touches, the artist and entrepreneur discovered an untapped passion, unleashing a new talent as he released designs and images from the virgin timber.
“Once I started, it was literally like, 'Where have I been all my life? Who is this person emerging?'” Pettegrew said, “because it was definitely coming out of me, and it felt very natural and very organic, and it was very fluid.”
Sculpting wood is different from carving, he said. Rather than chiseling out a creation, he sculpts and molds the wood as one would clay. Each piece of wood has its own personality, Pettegrew said, and as he works with the material, the unique characteristics of each piece emerge.
“For me, it's literally a dance – that's a good way to describe it,” he said. “It feels like a tango. I'm dancing with a partner and the partner is the wood and the wood is telling me things and expressing itself.”
Though he'd found a new outlet for creative expression, Pettegrew didn't have much time for pursuing his newly discovered art form once Xetava was open and thriving, so wood sculpting took a backseat to business matters.
After running Xetava Gardens for many years, Pettegrew said he got “the seven-year itch,” and a desire to balance his life and focus more on artistic endeavors came calling.
When Pettegrew creates, he has to immerse himself in his artwork, he said, and the time-consuming and attention-demanding nature of running a business hadn't left him room to do that.
“At some point I had to let go, because it was draining my creative energy,” he said.
So letting go is just what he did. Pettegrew sold Xetava Gardens, though he remains a partner in the business, and began devoting himself to other pursuits, including wood sculpting.
After designing and sculpting accents and other pieces for Xetava, Pettegrew had begun making similar additions to his own Ivins home, which had been the typical subdivision structure when he moved in.
“This was actually a major segue into carving more regularly,” he said. “I just started playing around with my own little subdivision house and transforming it into something more magical.”
From creating an outdoor arch of twisted juniper to carving wood accents for his home and custom-making a front door as he had done for Xetava, Pettegrew turned his abode into a custom dwelling that related more to its desert surroundings. From that venture, Pettegrew's wood-sculpting artistry grew, and what had begun as a sort of creative lark has turned into a full-time business for him. He now does a great deal of professional carving work throughout the Southwest, and he also does what he calls “environmental design,” helping people make their yards and home exteriors more harmonious with the local desert environment.
“It's always about bringing back native species or at least drought-tolerant or desert-type plants that are more appropriate for desert living,” Pettegrew said.
Pettegrew now melds his two pursuits, sculpting and environmental design, to create unique indoor and outdoor spaces.
“We live in a world that's full of a lot of cookie-cutter stuff, a lot of very commercialized stuff, and so I try to bring something new that's more heartfelt and more indigenous, so that's important to me. That's a driving force,” he said.
Among local projects Pettegrew is currently involved in is a beautification effort in Virgin, Utah, where he and others are re-vegetating stripped land along state Route 9 with desert willows and other natural vegetation. He has also been working at an estate called “Robin's Nest” in Rockville, just outside Zion National Park, to help transform that property into a more desert-like environmental place.
“It's a nice home and nice property, but it just had very little connection to the environment, so we've gone in there and brought back a lot of the character in the land,” Pettegrew said.
When the current owner purchased it, Robin's Nest had a lot of lawn and non-indigenous flowers and plants, but natural vegetation and Pettegrew's more earth-harmonious design, coupled with his wood-sculpted pieces, are turning the property into a desert retreat.
Work is plentiful for Pettegrew as he spends time doing what he loves. For him, leaving the day-to-day business life behind to immerse himself in creative work and connect deeply with his artistic medium has been freeing and satisfying.
“I've always had a very, very deep connection to the land and the environment, so it was not possible for me to sit in a cubicle and draw pictures all day or be under a deadline that was too intense – it just killed my creativity,” he said. “I work from the heart, I work from the gut. My work is very emotional for me.”
To find out more about Daniel Pettegrew's work or to contact him, visit www.dannydesertdesigns.com or call 703-0077

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