Bad Day on the S.S. Normandie.

Tree Carved Octopus Attacking Ship

Pacific Grove, California

Trees -- even beautiful front lawn set-piece trees -- eventually die. Whether it's a fatal wind or blight or old age, their demise may leave an emotional and aesthetic hole. One remedy we enthusiastically endorse is to carve the stump remains into a thought-provoking sculpture.

Homeowners Matthew and Jessica Denecour looked at their fallen giant, with only a pair of tall stumps remaining, and saw opportunity. They commissioned artist Griffon Ramsey to transform the tree with one of her imaginative chainsaw carvings. The result was an intricate scene of a monster octopus crushing a steamer ocean liner with its tentacles. Ramsey completed the spectacular "Bad Day on the S.S. Normandie" in September 2017. She said it was her largest sculpture to date. The sculpture is visible from the public street next to the driveway, facing a golf course.

The S.S. Normandie was the name of an actual ship which had its own bad days (though none involving a giant octopus). In 1939, the new French ocean liner was seized and interned while visiting New York harbor when France and Germany went to war. Three years later an accidental fire and sloppy extinguishing caused the docked ship to flip over and sink on February 10, 1942. It was broken up for scrap in 1946.