Platte County man's chain saw bears have become a popular treasure hunt

The man with the chain saw is calm. His eyes are soft, and his demeanor is peaceful as wood chips fly, and the face of a friendly bear starts to emerge.

Jumbled piles of firewood are strewn about a wooded rural yard. Wooden eagles, a couple of folk heads, a mushroom bench, a pineapple, popcorn on a stick and something that resembles the Polynesian heads on Easter Island dot the area outside a garage workshop that has seen a lot of use.

In the middle is T.J. Jenkins, the man behind a community art project that is becoming a treasure hunt of sorts for people enjoying the back roads of rural Platte County.

What Jenkins calls Bear Head Road is a growing collection of brightly painted, carved bear heads poking out from trees alongside roads. He has made and placed more than 100 heads, and the project is just beginning.

Jenkins, a self-taught artist, started creating when life threw him a curveball and carving helped get his mind off his troubles. He began in December 2012 after he lost his jobmoved to Platte County to care for his ailing mother and his car caught on fire.

“Those were just some really bad, dark times, like everybody deals with,” he says.

Jenkins grew up in St. Joseph, traveled the country and lived in Georgia and Appalachia. There, he was drawn to the folk art that often decorated the roadsides.

“In the Appalachians, you just see stuff put up by people by the road. You can drive down the road and see all kinds of stuff, pottery, painted wood, other creations,” he says.

Jenkins, who now lives just southeast of Farley, started with a hammer and a carpenters chisel one bad day and made a head out of a piece of wood. It wasn’t particularly good, but he found carving kept his mind off the “dark stuff.”

He continued creating and looking for better tools. Pretty soon, he came across other carvers and found the small chain saw without a safety chain he currently uses. He carved human heads, a pair of underwear, a tooth and a heart with wings. It was folk-artsy. Other carvers told him people like bears, so he tried his hand at those.

When he had about 20 bears, he thought about putting them in the fire pit but decided to post some on trees by the road to put a smile on other people’s faces. It worked. Neighbors began to ask for the bears and spread the word. Now there are about 120 of them. Thirty or so are waiting to be placed, and he has a list of people who want heads on their properties.

Tracy Turney and her husband, Jeff, are one of the newest recipients. Jenkins placed bear No. 97 on a tree at their Weston business, Jeff’s Architectural Salvage, where Jenkins is a customer. When Tracy found out about the project, she begged for a bear.

“I think it’s so cool. I think we need something like that,” she says. “People drive out to see our countryside because Platte County is so pretty. The bear is very visible from our city parking and when you go down Main Street.”

Jenkins has a Facebook page and website but says most people hear about him through word of mouth. “People drive down 45 Highway or N Highway, ask around and somehow they find out about it,” he says.

Bears are all over several areas of Platte County.

While Jenkins goes to craft shows and sells some of his work, there is no money involved in the Bear Head Road project. He just likes the idea that people can drive home after a hard day at work and be greeted by the bears.

“The purpose is to put a smile on your face. It’s kind of a community art project. Sometimes people think there’s a catch. Then they start to warm up when they realize I really don’t want anything except to put up a bear head,” Jenkins says. Only one person has said no.

Each head has a number, but there is no map of their locations. That is part of the plan. Jenkins wants people to feel protected. He doesn’t put their names or addresses on a website. Instead, it is like a bear-head treasure hunt.

“I didn’t want people to take them off the trees and try to sell them,” he says. “People can’t go around and find them. They have to know where they are. The numbers help. People like to go around and check off the numbers they have discovered.”

Most of the bears are painted in bright colors. He tries to stay away from sports team colors because his own family has a big MU/KU rivalry and he knows how that can go. Unconventional colors keep them from getting stolen, but there’s a more practical reason as well: Jenkins doesn’t have a lot of money for paint. He buys what he calls “oops” paint from hardware stores – the kind of paint that gets mis-mixed and can be purchased inexpensively.

Jenkins says he’s inspired by other self-taught artists, like R.A. Miller and S.L. Jones, whose work he became familiar with while living in Appalachia. Miller was known for creating metal whirligigs. S.L. Jones whittled heads out of pieces of wood. This kind of art, known as outsider art, folk art or grassroots art, fascinated Jenkins. When he came home to Platte County, he sought out similar collections, but didn’t find any.

“So when I started doing these bear heads, I guess I came to the conclusion there’s no reason why I can’t be the one who puts it there,” Jenkins says.

He hopes to finish 500 to 1,000 bear heads in the next couple of years. Creating and placing them has been healing, and he hopes it is for others, as well.

“It’s just … who doesn’t like to have a bear head stuck in their tree? It is the closest thing I get to a vacation,” he says.

This story was originally published April 9, 2016 at 3:00 AM with the headline "Platte County man's chain saw bears have become a popular treasure hunt."