COEUR d'ALENE - Bill Malcomb guided his 4-year-old daughter's bike as the pair made their way Wednesday across Coeur d'Alene's Phippeny Park.

Malcomb and the child headed straight for the downtown park's northwest corner, the spot where a dead tree has been undergoing a daily metamorphosis. It is now bursting with images of life - wildlife.

"It's looking sweet," said Malcomb, who lives a block away from the green space that sits between Seventh and Eighth streets in Coeur d'Alene's residential Garden District.

The Ponderosa pine's purely artistic resurrection is being guided by the hands and eyes of Coeur d'Alene wood sculptor Jeff May. May was finishing up his ninth day of work near the park's western edge. Using a chain saw, knives and other power tools, May has transformed a large tree stump into a towering totem of carefully crafted creatures of the forest, river and sky.

A wolf, an otter, a bear cub, an eagle, three chinook salmon and a grizzly's massive head have emerged where there was once bark. An owl is poised on a branch near the top of the piece.

"It's been really cool. I've met so many of the neighbors, and I've gotten so much feedback," May said.

Many people have visited the spot while May has been working. Some quietly observe and then move along the sidewalk; others come closer and have questions about the piece.

Some of the observers are old-timers who talk about their days attending school there in the spot where the tree art is taking place.

May often stops and chats with those who show a more active interest.

"It's one thing to look at art. This way, people can interact with its creative process," May said.

From 1910 to 1954, Phippeny Park was the site of Coeur d'Alene High School. The building later served, until 1975, as a junior high. It was eventually demolished. The land was turned into a city park in 1989, and named after G.O. Phippeny who was CHS principal there from 1930 to 1941.

"We're able to pay for it because Ace Walden left some money to do some improvements," said Karen Haskew, urban forester for the city's parks department.

Walden, a retired bank manager and longtime Coeur d'Alene community philanthropist, died a year ago at 103.

The "City of Coeur d'Alene for Phippeny Park" was one of nine community organizations to receive gifts from the estate of Walden and his wife, Ellen. The couple attended high school on the site.

May's work already appears in other Coeur d'Alene parks.

"Woodrow B. Grizz," the 9-foot carved, wooden bear in Bryan Park on Harrison Avenue, was created by May in 2004. A salmon springing since 2003, from a stump in Coeur d'Alene's City Park, was also done by May.

He took a few years off from sculpting, but May said he's now more passionate than ever about his art.

He began crafting wood a dozen years ago.

Using a dead tree as an artistic medium offers its own special challenges.

"You never know what you're going to find in there," he said.

In the spot where a grizzly's face now peers out, May discovered a significant amount of rot he had to work around.

He said he studies the anatomy of the animals he sculpts, reviewing images and occasionally observing live animals. During a recent trip to a Washington raptor rehabilitation center, May spent time watching various birds of prey.

"Their expression in movement is limitless. It's like that with almost every creature," he said.

May also tries to capture an animal's emotion in his work. A wolf at the bottom of the Phippeny piece stands with its paws on a boulder as it appears to be pondering potential danger or prey in the distance.

Turning trees into public art is a way for a larger tree to serve another purpose after death, said the city's Haskew.

There are several other wood-carved tree pieces in town, in addition to May's. This is Phippeny Park's first.

To deter vandals, Haskew said one of the specifications for the Phippeny piece is that it be created as "vandal-proof as possible."

There are no small or narrow bits that can be broken off, she said.

"There's nothing to grab on to," Haskew said.

The city's cost for the piece is $2,200.

"It's a beautiful piece of artwork," said park neighbor Malcomb. "I think it's a functional use of city funds."