Quadriplegic creates hiking staffs

WILLIAMSPORT, Ind. -- Artists express themselves with words and music, paint and canvas, silver and gold.\nJay Freeland, 49, finds inspiration in the hills and woods of his Warren County home.\nAs he spends months turning the limb of a native oak tree into a hiking staff encrusted with hand-carved mushrooms, leaves, squirrels, snakes, spiders and hummingbirds, he is inspired by the wood.\n"The wood will talk back to you," he says. "It will tell you what to carve. A vivid imagination helps, too."\nJay Freeland is not only an artist but a quadriplegic. His hands and legs haven't "worked" since a foggy day in 1979 when his pickup truck struck and killed three Belgian draft horses on a road near Pine Village.\nSeveral of his creations are on display at the Attica Public Library.\n"I couldn't do what he does with both of my hands," says Priscilla Davis, adult librarian there. "I can't get over the talent that is there."\n"He does such beautiful carvings, so intricate," says Williamsport's Fran Kresler, who has taught art classes for 14 years.\nA 1976 graduate of Seeger Memorial High School, Freeland was driving to his job as a semi-truck driver at a grain elevator when the accident occurred.\nParalysis "slowed me down enough to appreciate other things in life," he says. "It opened my eyes to other things to do."\nTwenty-two years old and "bored out of my skull," he started experimenting, he says.\nHe discovered that by using both hands, he could hold an artist's paintbrush that had been pushed through a cork. By moving his shoulders, he could paint ceramics. After that, he started using a wood-burning tool.\n"It filled in a lot of hours," says Freeland, who had made wire sculptures in high school. "One thing led to another."\nTen years ago, through trial and error, he figured out a way to brace his arms and use a small electric drill and an air chisel to cut, gouge and shape wood. Paints and burning added depth and detail.\nThe key was devising a way to hold the tree limb with vises. Before that, he says, he fumbled around and nearly drilled a hole in his leg.\n"It takes me three months to make a hiking staff, but I'm not working eight hours a day," he says. "Some days, I can work on one for five or six hours. Other days, after one hour, I'm totally fed up with it."\nFreeland made staffs for friends who helped him build his log house.\n"I couldn't get anyone to take a dime for building my house, so I wanted to give art," he says with a smile.\nFreeland is an upbeat man who uses an electric wheelchair and drives a specially equipped van. He still goes mushroom hunting.\n"His attitude is amazing," says his aunt, Sharon Freeland Strickland of Williamsport. "His outlook on life is wonderful."\nHe sells custom-made staffs for $200 each. His favorite wood is osage orange, cut from old hedge rows. It's hard and strong, and when polished and sealed, it looks like ivory.\n"One guy wanted to sell them at a mushroom festival," Freeland says. "He said, 'Can you carve 50 sticks for me in six months?' I said, 'I can do two, maybe. I like to take the time to do it right.'"\nHe wants the sticks, and their owners, to enjoy the woods as much as he does.\nFreeland's dream is to write a how-to book about carving for people with handicaps.\n"All the books show people using hand chisels," he says. "I've had to develop (techniques) myself -- how to hold onto things. I want to show it, step by step. If I can do it, somebody else can do it."\nHe's an artist but it took a tragedy to reveal his hidden talent.\n"This has meant a lot to me," Freeland says. "It's kind of overwhelming to be able to do this. It occupies so much of my time. I like each piece I do, and I like to see it go on. They'll be around in hundreds of years"