Griffon Ramsey facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Griffon Ramsey
Ramsey at RTX 2011
Born	(1980-04-23) April 23, 1980 (age 45) Eugene, Oregon, U.S.
Occupation	Artist
Movement	Chainsaw art
Spouse(s)	Geoff Ramsey ​ ​ (m. 2005; div. 2018)​
Children	1
YouTube information
Years active	2011–present
Subscribers	67.1 thousand (July 22, 2024)
Total views	4.2 million (July 22, 2024)
Subscriber and view counts updated as of July 22, 2024.

Griffon E. Ramsey (born April 23, 1980) is an American artist known for her incredible chainsaw carvings. She creates wood sculptures inspired by pop-culture characters and designs. Her art has been featured at big events like the Australian Chainsaw Carving Championships.

Experts have called her a "world-famous" artist with a "bold style." She is also known for being a successful woman in a field mostly dominated by men. Griffon Ramsey shares her art and carving process on YouTube. Her videos, like the one where she carved Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, have become very popular online. As of 2023, her YouTube channel has over 4 million video views and more than 68,000 subscribers.

Griffon Ramsey's Early Life and Art Journey

Griffon Ramsey grew up in Oregon. She was inspired by the wood carvings she saw as a child, including some made by her own grandfather. In 2008, she earned a degree in Theatre from Texas State University. She began chainsaw sculpting in 2011, after her husband, Geoff Ramsey, gave her her first chainsaw. She also learned from R.L. Blair, a wood designer for Disneyland parks. Griffon has shared that "Griffon" is not her original birth name; she legally changed it because she feels a stronger connection to this name.

Before she became a wood sculptor, Ramsey worked on a project to design and paint playground markings at elementary schools. This work was done to encourage kids to be more active.

For several years, Ramsey worked at Rooster Teeth Productions, a well-known online media company. There, she created video series, wrote comics, helped with production design, and acted in shows. She was also a frequent guest on the Rooster Teeth Podcast. She left the company in October 2011.

In 2013, Ramsey was the Production Designer for an independent film called Grow Up, Tony Phillips. She also appeared in some Rooster Teeth series, like Happy Hour and Heroes and Halfwits, where she played a character named Orma. In 2017, she played "The Griffon" in another Rooster Teeth web series, The Eleven Little Roosters.

How Griffon Ramsey Creates Her Art

Ramsey working on a carving before an audience at RTX 2015.

Griffon Ramsey uses different types of chainsaws to create a "rustic" or natural look for her sculptures. She also uses tools like angle grinders, sanders, and Dremels to add fine details. To make her art stand out, she often burns, stains, and paints her wood carvings.

Ramsey loves getting ideas for new carvings from her fans, often through her Twitter page. She records and edits videos of her carving process, which she then shares on her YouTube channel. In these videos, she explains how she makes each piece and what inspired her.

She gets her inspiration from many places, including street artists, folk artists, and other wood carvers. She feels a strong need to create and change her surroundings through her art. Many people admire her work, saying that she makes the chainsaw, which seems like a rough tool, into something elegant for detailed art. Griffon also sees her work as a type of performance art, because people often watch her carve.

Famous Chainsaw Sculptures

• Professor Morris Finds a Lamp: This sculpture showed an archeologist discovering a genie. It was praised for being her most complex work at the time.
• Crimson Omen: In 2011, she carved the Crimson Omen logo from the Gears of War video game series. This carving caught the attention of many gaming websites.
• Groot: In 2014, Griffon carved a Eastern red cedar tree into Groot, the tree-like character from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. The video of her making Groot quickly gained over 115,000 views in just three days.
• Elsa: Also in 2014, she carved Elsa from Disney's Frozen. She was inspired to create this piece because her daughter loved the character.
• The Neverending Story Book: In 2015, Ramsey participated in the Australian Chainsaw Carving Championships. She carved a storybook from The Neverending Story and won the People's Choice Award for it.
• Majora's Mask: In February 2015, she created a life-sized replica of Majora's Mask from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask video game, which was very popular with gamers.

Griffon Ramsey has also participated in other carving events, such as the Scottish Open Chainsaw Carving Championships.