Living in Montana, we can’t help but see the trees. They are a beautiful and undeniable part of our natural environment.

Some people might see Christmastime when they look around the woods. Some see firewood for the winter, or a great summer bonfire. Some see housing materials, or a perfect place to hang a hammock or tire swing.

Some just see the trees as a fundamental part of our landscape.

But when Bigfork artist Todd Coats looks at a tree, he sees something completely different.

Maybe it’s a bear, or mountain goat. Once, it was a dinosaur crushing rocks.

Coats is a chain-saw artist. When he looks at trees, he visualizes the creature it will become.

“It’s hard to train someone to do chainsaw art,” Coats said. “You have to be able to visualize before you start, that’s key. And that’s hard to teach.”

Coats’ primary art form is chainsaw wood carving, but he also draws portraits and sculpts in bronze.

“When you’re sculpting in bronze, it’s easy,” Coats said. “If something doesn’t look right, you just reshape it. It’s malleable to a degree. But when working with wood, you’ve got one shot.

“Chain-saw work is more difficult in that respect.”

Coats, 56, didn’t start out thinking he would become a professional artist.

“I had no intent of doing this for a living, it just turned out that way,” he said.

Coats was born in Casper, Wyoming, and moved with his family to Montana during his school years. He graduated from Bigfork High School.

He first started creating in a sixth-grade art class. He credits that class for teaching him there were different ways to look at and break down a picture in order to recreate the image.

He said the technique works the same with wood carving.

“Basically you look at one small section of the whole, and then focus on all the sections fitting together to create the piece,” Coats said. “And if you take your time and be patient, there’s nothing you can’t do.”

Coats went on to take art classes through high school. He said he had a lot of independence in the high school classes, which allowed him the chance to experiment with different mediums.

“I just enjoyed it,” Coats said of creating artwork. “It’s just something I was good at, so I ended up doing a lot of it.”

After graduating, Coats moved to Texas and worked various jobs in the oil industry for many years. In 1990, he decided he’d had enough of the Texas heat and “came home” to the Flathead Valley. He has lived and worked all over the valley in the years since, but now resides near Bigfork and works at an outdoor studio in Woods Bay.

He began the chain-saw art as a fun side project, a way to work outside and make a little extra money. But then a local business owner approached him about creating a commissioned piece.

“He asked me to make a 9-foot-tall bear,” Coats said. “It was crazy to start out that big.”

But Coats rose to the challenge, and hasn’t stopped making art since. Nearly 30 years later, he estimated that he has created more than 10,000 pieces of varying size and shape to date.

“I’ve done every animal there is at some point,” he said, laughing. “You’d be surprised at the requests I’ve gotten over the years. Some of the craziest aren’t fit for print.”

Coats has some work represented at various shops locally and regionally, but commissioned work is his primary method of business. He said he is busy every day trying to keep up with demand.

“I’m much faster now than when I started … The [9-foot] bear took a month, and now the same project might take three days,” Coats said. “And usually I try to get ahead and keep a supply of smaller pre-made pieces for tourists around come summer, but I don’t have as many this year. It’s crazy. They just sell like crazy.”

Every inch of Coats’ outdoor studio, on Montana 35 at the very north end of Woods Bay, is covered with sawdust. Some of the wood lying around is scrap, but some is just another creation yet to be realized.

Coats said his schedule depends somewhat on the weather as well as the status of any given project. He said his work days can be “six to 10 to 16 hours a day.”

“But I enjoy working outside,” he said. “It’s very physical work. It keeps me in pretty good shape and it’s a pretty good living.”

Making a living with a chain saw in hand is not only physically demanding, but dangerous at times.

“I’ve had a lot of close calls,” Coats said. “But I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve not been bit by the chain saw.”

Coats uses an assortment of tools for his work, including four carving saws (which are smaller and more accurate for detail) and four large standard saws. The chains are different on each. Coats also does some sanding work and uses a drill for the eyes of his creations, completing them with a simple, oil-based finish.

Coats said even though he enjoys the chain-saw art, he plans to transition from wood to bronze as his primary medium in a few years, mostly due to the physical demands of the wood work.

“But for now I’d rather be outside while I still can,” he said. “And when I pass away ... I’ll have a whole lot of things out there lasting a whole lot longer than I will.”

For more information on Coats and to view his art, visit www.facebook.com/Toddschainsawart or www.toddschainsawart.com.

Entertainment editor Stefanie Thompson can be reached at 758-4439 or ThisWeek@dailyinterlake.com.