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This year’s fresh additions to the Crescent Park Tree Art project are now complete and are being enjoyed by regular parkgoers and new visitors alike — the artists were Carly Jaye, Sadi Rose Vaxvick, and Karen Watson.
The project started in 2016 to turn the stumps of trees out front of the Moose Jaw Public Library and the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery (MJMAG) into permanent artworks. It is sponsored and co-ordinated through a partnership between the MJMAG, the Crescent Park Foundation, and the City of Moose Jaw.
The Crescent Park Foundation organized the official unveiling event on Oct. 17. The foundation board and the artists were joined by family members and the public. Board chair Jim Dixon thanked all the artists for their hard work and inspiration.
“These artists have put a lot of time and thought into what they’ve produced here, which has added to the beauty and culture here in our park, which is, after, the heart of downtown Moose Jaw,” Dixon said. “They were a pleasure to work with, and I hope you all get a chance to chat with them and let them know we appreciate them.”
Karen Watson has been carving artwork in Moose Jaw for years, including a previous piece in Crescent Park — The History of the Band Festival, 2021. This time, she decided to tribute the Snowbirds.
“This is one of my favourite carvings, and it was interesting because it started off not going well. I found some rot in the middle of the tree, so I had to re-plan my design,” Watson explained. “It ended up that the rot goes right down to the middle, so that was challenging, but I’m really happy with how it turned out.
“I started off with a chainsaw, and then I used an angle grinder, a die grinder, and a dremel. Another really fantastic thing about this piece was just the connection with the community, because I had some people stopping by every day to check on how things were going ... It felt very much like a family kind of project.”
Sadi Rose Vaxvick, who is Nêhiyaw and Saulteaux registered on Ochapowace First Nations, carved a piece themed on the Seven Sacred Grandfather Teachings — love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, and truth.
“There are seven animals, representing seven teachings, and what this creation means to me is healing and re-connection with my culture,” Vaxvick explained. “I hope other Indigenous people look at this and know it as a form of healing.
“It has a sweetgrass braid wrapped around the tree connecting all the animals and the spirits together, and it symbolizes the past, present, and future, as in the Indigenous peoples. We’re here in the past, we’re still here in the present, and we’ll continue to be here in the future.”
Carly Jaye’s bright, stylized artworks appear all across Moose Jaw, from murals to public art projects to temporary Moose Jaw Warriors windows art during the franchise’s recent championship run.
She decided to bring her signature splash of bold, energetic colours and Moose Jaw themes to the piece, and worked with a local expert to depict wildlife that call Crescent Park home.
“I know nothing about these birds, I just call them the yellow one, the red one, that one,” she laughed. “Paul Fisher, a Parks and Rec employee who works in Crescent Park, gave me a list of the species that are known to habitat in Crescent Park, so that’s where the inspiration came from.
“It was amazing for me to expand my art into a new avenue in our downtown. I’ve never worked on something like a tree or in a park like this. Knowing we already had this growing collection of sculpted art and chainsaw art, I was excited to be the first one to kind of add a pop of colour. I’ve been growing a reputation around Moose Jaw, and it was awesome to be able to trickle that into Crescent Park.”