Chris Wagner:
The piece titled Dead Dad was a direct response to learning that my father—someone I never truly knew—had passed away. I never met him beyond a few phone calls and emails. Through those brief interactions I also learned I had two half-brothers I’d never met. The whole situation felt remote and emotionally disconnected, and I found myself thinking about those relationships—these people tied to me in name but in no real, lived way.

That’s where the buzzards came from. In the sculpture they’re simply looking at the dead figure, not consuming or interacting with him. They’re suspended in this moment of consideration, deciding whether there’s anything there for them at all. That sense of ambiguity, of distance, felt true to the experience.

You never know where inspiration will surface. I sketch constantly, filling pages while I’m thinking through an idea, and this particular image was what emerged.

Lee Matney:
I loved when you mentioned how much you enjoy your kids drawing on your sketches. Some of the yellow marks were still visible.

Chris Wagner:
Yes—and I actually let them draw on my sculptures, too. Nothing in the studio is off-limits to them except what’s unsafe. Their marks become these small moments of collaboration. Even when they’re not physically in the room, the studio carries traces of them, and I want that to remain part of their lives. I didn’t grow up with an artist as a parent, and I would’ve loved that experience—so I’m happy to give it to them.

Someday I’d like to make a whole body of work where I do the carving and they do all the painting. I think it would be incredibly fun.

Lee Matney:
We’re planning a kids’ show at some point—your children could be part of it.

Chris Wagner:
I’d love that. The challenge with kids, of course, is stopping them at the right moment. Sometimes they’ll make this beautiful, accidental passage, and then immediately cover it in purple. I’ve often wanted to incorporate one of their drawings or carvings directly into a finished piece so they can feel the pride of seeing their work in a gallery.

Animals, Relationships, and Recontextualization

Lee Matney:
Tell me about the cluster of pieces in the show—the heads with animals perched on them, the turtle, the vulture.

Chris Wagner:
When I stack figures or place animals on heads, I’m usually recontextualizing our relationship with those animals—turning that dynamic upside down. Sometimes it’s literal: if I’m thinking a lot about a particular animal, I’ll put it directly on the head as a signal of what’s occupying the mind.

I sketch animals I’m genuinely engaged with. I’ll read about them, look for people who study them, observe how others interact with them. For example, the tortoise piece in the gallery came from reading an article about a Japanese man who walked his pet tortoise around his neighborhood. Paired with my time living near a tortoise sanctuary in Utah, those experiences fused into the final sculpture. I never carve an animal I haven’t developed some kind of relationship with.

Bobcats, Owls, and the Everyday Wild

Chris Wagner:
The bobcat pieces came from when I lived in California. I worked on a farm where a bobcat kept killing our birds every night. One day it leapt from a shrub as my dog and I were checking the fence line—my dog chased it into the brush, and I was sure she’d be hurt, but she came out fine. Those encounters lodged the bobcat firmly “on my mind.”

The owl piece is more recent. It’s loosely based on a coworker who always wears suspenders, but the owl itself comes from the calls we hear constantly outside our house. I walk the park hoping to see it, but never do. In my studio at night, it’s either the owls or the frogs keeping me company.

Studio, Scale, and Material

Lee Matney:
Your studio is only 250 square feet, but it feels much larger.

Chris Wagner:
It’s the biggest personal studio I’ve ever had. Everything is modular, and most of my tools are handheld, so space works differently when you’re carving. If the studio were bigger it would probably feel colder. This size feels right.

Coyotes and the “Taste of the Wild”

Chris Wagner:
Coyotes and bison are my most recurring subjects. Growing up camping on a cattle farm, coyotes would walk right up to our tent. Even in major cities—Portland, San Francisco—you can sometimes catch that skulking shape at dawn. Wherever you are, a coyote is a reminder that a little piece of the wild still shares your space.

Borrowed Perspective

Lee Matney:
Why did you call that series Borrowed Perspective?

Chris Wagner:
Because with the mask pieces, I’m trying to imagine the world through the eyes of another creature. It isn’t only about depicting the animal—it’s about thinking through how that animal perceives the world. You can never truly see through their eyes, so the mask becomes the intermediary. I’ve made masks with eye holes before, but in the aluminum pieces it worked better to keep the form simplified. The contrast between the cast metal and the carved wood underneath adds to that separation between the inner life and the outward form.

Material Logic and Carving Approach

Lee Matney:
Tell me about the large bison in the middle of the gallery—your approach to carving something at that scale, and how the material choices shaped the final form.

Chris Wagner:
I have a lot of progress shots and even time-lapses of that piece. When I’m carving large animals, I base the measurements on the real scale of the species. At the Muscarelle, for example, the deer and coyote I made are precisely the actual size of those animals. With the bison, I wanted viewers to feel the true physical presence of something that massive—something you rarely get to experience safely in the wild.

When working at that size, you’re not carving from a single gigantic tree. You’re laminating reclaimed lumber, stacking it, and constructing the mass from smaller structural components. Then I carve it down with a range of tools—chainsaws with different blades, angle grinders, and smaller hand tools. I leave all the tool marks visible. Wood has its own language, and those marks honor the process.

If you wanted hyperrealism, wood wouldn’t be the material. But wood carries a physical and emotional truth that I like to highlight, especially when building something monumental.

Dialogues with Steve Prince

Lee Matney:
You and Steve Prince are shown side by side in the gallery. Do you see intersections?

Chris Wagner:
Absolutely. We use similar tools, but we work in completely different ways. Steve is incredibly gestural and fast—almost additive in spirit, even when he’s carving. I’m slow, subtractive, patient. Yet our marks can arrive at a similar energy. That’s what fascinates me: two artists using related tools and materials can arrive in adjacent emotional territories through entirely different processes.

That crouched figure you pointed out echoes Steve’s work unintentionally. I was simply sketching how I sleep—studying my own body positions. But those resonances happen, and they’re interesting.