Chair of many zeros

Would you pay a million dollars for a chair carved with a chainsaw? Maurice Smyth hears there's someone who just might
Before he left England to settle in Papakura three years ago, Mark Jones finished a labour of love, a massive chair with footstool, carved entirely with a chainsaw, which is to be auctioned in the United Kingdom with a reserve of $1 million. A one-off, it was fashioned in intricate sections from a huge, laminated block of tulip wood imported from America, then joined up like a sculpture. The former railway carriage cleaner from Kent saw it as a challenge to test his design and creative skills without touching a chisel or tap-hammer ? and it might pay off big time. Finding no suitable fabric for upholstery, he used English oak for the seat and armrests. The footstool, when inverted, is a coffee table. The chair is currently on display in a former hops shed turned- creative centre at Faversham where the curious can ogle its ergonomics. Before that it was in a window display in London's Oxford Street. ''I think I've shared it with the public long enough,'' he says. ''Now it's time to test the market.'' But who would buy such a curio? ''Sir Elton John just might be convinced,'' he says without pause. Mark threw away his sweeper's broom in 1986 to follow the horses ? rocking horses ? and joined the machine-shop staff of a company making and exporting luxury toys to wealthy, doting parents. He could turn out two a week using a mallet and chisel, but when new technology arrived in 1990 in the form of the electric chainsaw, they were trotting out the door every week in small herds of 14. The routine became boring so he set up his own business and the artistic temperament of new friends stirred his creative juices. The Doodlewood Chair ? ''I doodled a lot before I switched on the saw'' ? was born. A craftsman with the Noblewood company in Onehunga by day, he still makes carousel horses in his spare time at his Papakura workshop, priced from $4400 for an extra large version to $700 for a bow-rocker miniature. All are made from Fijian kauri ''because it's more stable and versatile, with stain enhancing the grain''. The eyes are glass, saddles are leather and manes are horsehair. Mark's company, Dream Rockers, will donate two horses, worth $4200 and $850, to Starship Children's Hospital when hand-over details are finalised.