Enoch Hartwell is Bridgewater’s Renaissance Man

By Tom Ayres , Senior Staff Writer

“It’s only as real as the wood that I use

I can’t make your dreams come true

That’s something you’ll have to do

 

Woodcarver, carve me the love I can’t find

Make him gentle, tender and kind

Carve him a heart that will always be mine

Woodcarver, take your time

 

Well, I can carve you a knight or a cowboy in jeans

Or maybe a sailor coming home from the sea

As hard as the oak or as soft as the pine

Just like the man you can’t find

 

But I can’t make it real for you

It’s only as real as the wood that I use.”

 

— Lyrics and music by Pam and Rusty Wolf, as sung by Johnny Cash with Sandy Kelly.

Bridgewater resident, stand-up comic, and Woolen Mill Comedy Club cofounder Collen Doyle considers his eclectic friend and neighbor Enoch Hartwell the quintessential Renaissance Man.

Hartwell, a New Hampshire native who has called Bridgewater home for the past six years, is a supremely talented chainsaw artist and wood sculptor whose masterful carvings have garnered renown at art, craft, and musical festivals nationwide since he first began crafting his colorful, beguiling creations more than a decade ago. In addition to his skills as an iconoclastic sculptor of wood, Hartwell is also an illustrator, screen printer and, most recently, an ingenious designer and converter of vans that he transforms into tiny homes on wheels.

Enoch, 56, is the son of the late New Hampshire schoolteacher and celebrated wooden boat builder Robert “Rob” Hartwell, who taught middle school and special education, predominantly in Unity, N.H., while also pursuing master boatbuilding as both an avocation and vocation during several stages of his life. From chainsaw to chisel and airbrushing to pen-and-ink illustrations, the artistry that defines Enoch Hartwell’s life today is rooted in the lessons he learned from his father Rob about art, craftsmanship, creativity, teaching, encouraging aspiring creators, and giving back to the community.

“I’ve been carving for roughly 11 years now, since just about the time I came to Vermont,” Hartwell said at the outset of a phone conversation from his Bridgewater home and wood sculpting workshop last Saturday. “I had carved in New Hampshire for a little while,” the master artisan added, noting that he lived in Reading when he moved to Vermont, before relocating to Bridgewater in 2020. “But I’ve been working with wood all my life. My dad was a boat builder, and I was just always around wood and doing my own thing with it. I also did a lot of sculpting with clays and polymers — I did that for many years. Then I was at a music festival one time, watching this guy carve – plus I grew up with a friend who was a sign carver — so all that kind of got me into the carving thing. The first carving I did was an Indian out of a tree that I had cut down at my property. I’ve also done thousands of hours of drawings — pen and ink,” Hartwell noted, continuing the stream-of-consciousness recitation.

Rob Hartwell’s zeal for teaching — and for wooden boats — left an indelible mark on young Enoch. “His big love was really wooden boats,” Enoch Hartwell recollected about his father. “He was a big wooden boat man. We had stacks of wooden boat magazines all over the house. He always encouraged me about anything that I ever did as far as art goes — and he was really creative himself. He taught middle school for a number of years before I was born in 1970, and then he went to work in a mill and later, in Michigan, for a big wooden boat builder. But later in life, he went full circle and went back to being a teacher, teaching special needs kids. He was a man of many talents and interests. My father really loved kids, and he loved teaching. And he was very giving — the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. When I was 18, I said something about being interested in airbrushing — and he went right out and bought me an airbrush.”

Enoch Hartwell’s wondrous wooden creations — and his copious illustrations, pen-and-ink drawings, and other art — are driven by his love of the natural world and of music, both of which have always been abiding passions in his life. There’s the 16-foot-tall totem pole he created on commission for the Prospect Hill Antique Shop in Sunapee Harbor, N.H., featuring a moose, fox, bear, owl, and raccoon, with a soaring American eagle topping it off. There’s the snarling, extraordinarily lifelike black bear, appearing ready to pounce. And there’s the whimsical wood sculpture depicting one of Hartwell’s culture heroes, the late guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, the fabled “Dancing Bears” twirling around the music icon’s feet. That creation, crafted at a jam band festival in the Adirondacks, now adorns the entryway to a restaurant near the concert site in Queensbury, N.Y. Live music performance also inspired the G-cleft note Hartwell chiseled into a log at another festival in rural Vermont a few years ago. The Bridgewater artist is also enamored of steam trains and old railways, so those nostalgic images find their way into his sculptures and visual art as well.

“I have a lot of things going on,” Hartwell offered, calling to mind all those old adages about multitasking, working multiple jobs — and, to reference a classic tune from the Great American Songbook — “moonlighting in Vermont.” In addition to his chainsaw sculpting and illustration work, Hartwell also had a general contracting business for two decades, continues to do tile work for bathroom renovations, and recently converted two vans into tiny homes — one on commission for a Bridgewater friend and the other, which is currently for sale, of his own volition. “I actually drove that van to Florida in February for a van life festival down there — there were 100 vans on display at the Kennedy Space Center, all custom vans — and I had a lot of people raving over mine. It was super cool.”

For two of the past three years, Hartwell has represented Vermont at the Chainsaw Carvers Rendezvous in Ridgway, Pa. — the largest annual gathering of chainsaw artists anywhere in the world. The Bridgewater artisan is also a staple at other art and music festivals throughout the United States — and in October of each year, he can be found at the annual Woodlife Festival in Chester, Vt., which draws skilled carvers from near and far. “I’ll never miss that one,” Hartwell offered. Asked about his engagement with multiple forms of artistic and creative expression and the satisfaction he draws from his work, Hartwell spoke of a recent experience at the Chester gathering that epitomizes his worldview and ethos.

“The best thing is the kids — and donating my work for charity,” Hartwell observed. “I was at the Chester festival, and I had this little girl just sit there for an hour, watching me. It is so inspiring to be able to stop and talk to kids and ask them, ‘Listen, do you like to draw? Do you know that’s where I got started?’ It’s great just to give them encouragement. The girl’s mother came up to me and said, ‘I know exactly where to find her. She’s sitting right here watching you.’

“I started talking to the mom, and she said, ‘She loves to draw,’ and I said, I’d introduce her to sculpting — [especially] to Sculpty, which is a clay-like polymer that’s really easy to work with. And the mom said she was headed right to the art store to get that for the kid,” Hartwell concluded, his voice tinged with emotion.