NEIGHBORHOOD CREATIVITY Visitors admire outdoor artwork

Two Berlin Center neighbors are attracting visitors by their yard artwork.
By VANESSA SCHUTZ
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BERLIN CENTER -- Several weeks ago, Ron Cadle's hard-rock maple tree met the heavy winds of a passing storm, and the result is a work of art.
With two-thirds of the 115-year-old tree in his front yard fallen victim to the tumultuous winds and gusts of rain, Cadle was left with the decision of how to handle the remainder.
He could either cut it down to a stump or have it dug out of the yard entirely. Cadle, who's been in his 100-year-old Berlin Center residence only since last July, chose neither.
"We took a bad situation and made it into art that can be enjoyed," Cadle said. "I hated to cut it down because it's such a landmark."
Now the maple tree stands as a whittled 8-foot grizzly bear complete with a coat of polyurethane to protect it from the elements.
Cadle's wife, Kathy, had the idea to transform the tree's trunk into a bear.
The couple hired Michael Blaine, 45, a traveling artist who has a home base in New Hampshire, to do the carving. The piece took the artist 16 hours to complete. He is also responsible for the pair of life-size football players outside the football stadium at Mount Union College in Alliance.
The bear now attracts visitors passing through Berlin Center.
Landmark
Cadle estimates that about 100 people have taken pictures of or by the grizzly bear carving, and that even more have stopped just to admire the artwork.
"It's a good landmark for Berlin Center," Cadle said. "I believe the bear was inside the tree the whole time waiting to come out."
The Cadles also had a large limb on a maple tree in their back yard transformed into what Ron considers to be a "backwards Griffin."
With a lion's head and eagle body, he feels he has captured something unique.
"It keeps away evil-doers and Democrats," Cadle joked.
But the grizzly bear is not the only piece of art stopping Berlin Center visitors in their tracks.
Sandy Breymaier, a neighbor of the Cadles', has a copper weeping-tree fountain in her yard she welded five years ago that she said attracts several visitors for pictures as well.
Her Victorian-style garden also displays her other copper pieces, such as windchimes and a trellis, and shaped bushes called topiaries as well.
A topiary in her front yard is of a deer, which makes her laugh to think how their neighborhood must appear to outside observers between the grizzly bear and her deer bush.
"We all must think, 'Let's see, I want to put an animal out here,'" Breymaier joked.
Inspiration
She was inspired to model her garden, which includes a tea garden area, after several older homes she visited all over the country that had similar yard exhibitions.
"I started out with a plain piece of property," Breymaier said. "There wasn't a bush or anything there."
And year after year, Breymaier has added something more to the outside or inside of her 1896 Hawkins House home, which she has maintained as a historical landmark by collecting late-1800 antiques to furnish the interior.
"When you come into my home, it looks like you stepped back into time. Everything fits," Breymaier said. "The only thing that doesn't is the TV."
She feels that her Berlin Center neighborhood is a center for artistic creativity because of the type of people the area attracts.
"It has to do with the homes themselves," Breymaier said. "The people that live in these old houses are drawn to them because there is so much craftsmanship to them."
vschutz@vindy.com