Meet Mike
Michael Bihlmaier grew up watching his father, John, create original jewelry pieces in Arizona and Southern California. “I know I drove him nuts looking over his shoulder, but I loved to watch him work,” Mike recalls. After an auto accident left John unable to work at his jewelry bench, he ended his business, HB Creations, and returned to engineering. This career change took the family to Marengo, Illinois, in late 1977. Although Mike’s spark for creating art had been ignited, it would only begin to take shape in his twenties when he started whittling.
In the late ’90s, Mike began experimenting with clay, and in 2000, he tried his hand at snow sculpting. His 8-foot-tall “bird on a hand” snow carving in his front yard became a local attraction and, as he jokingly admits, launched his chainsaw carving career. “People from the area would stop by and ask if I could carve trees. I picked up a few saws the next spring, and the rest is history,” he explains. That summer, Mike visited other carvers at county fairs, soaking up as much knowledge as he could.
Initially carving part-time as a hobby, Mike began competing professionally in late 2001, which quickly honed his speed and accuracy. Though winning competitions was a bonus, Bihlmaier found the camaraderie among fellow carvers most rewarding. His carving journey has taken him across the country, from Bluefield, West Virginia, to Reedsport, Oregon.
Balancing full-time work with competitive carving wasn’t easy, but it did get him noticed by ECHO, the outdoor power equipment company. In 2005, ECHO began sponsoring his saws and selected him as one of five sculptors nationwide to join The ECHO Carving Team. “I’m truly honored to have been part of the team, especially as a part-time carver,” Bihlmaier shares. In 2008, a downturn in construction led to layoffs, and after nearly 30 years as a repair machinist for Caterpillar dealerships, Mike was laid off. Since then, he has dedicated himself full-time to sculpture.
When asked about his greatest accomplishment, Bihlmaier insists, “That would be raising a family of seven sons with my wife, Tamera.” In his carving, Mike is fearless, confident he can transform any piece of wood into something remarkable. One of his most challenging projects was a 25-foot-tall, 50-inch-diameter oak stump in a creek bed, a setup that took two days. One of his proudest pieces is his first large wood sculpture: a 550-pound white oak grizzly standing in water, holding a salmon. He named it “Water Dance.”
“Wood is such an interesting material to work with. Sculpting in raw wood is like dissecting a tree. You have very little control over the medium,” he explains. As he carves, he reveals the tree’s history, from good years and bad to scars from injuries, insects, and even lightning strikes. “I once worked with a Catalpa log that had been struck by lightning three times before it was cut down.”
One of Mike’s passions is creating abstract pieces. He searches for unique growth patterns in each log, striving to bring out the fascinating markings, swirls, colors, and chatoyance that can take centuries to form. He concludes, “One of my favorite abstract pieces was carved from a cherry tree that had been used as a fence post and had grown around the barbed wire.”