The Prairie Chicken Festival, set for this Friday and Saturday, will go on without one of its most ardent supporters. Tim Bryner, who has participated and won several first place awards in the chalk art competition, was involved in a traffic accident Thursday night that left him with minor injuries.
Bryner said the accident occurred shortly after 9 p.m. when a driver of a vehicle ran a yield sign and struck his vehicle. The injuries he sustained, which includes a swollen eye, bruised wrist and arm and whiplash, will mean he not only has to drop out of the chalk art competition, something he has competed in for eight years, but he also won’t be able to give a chainsaw carving demonstration, an event he started last year.
On Friday morning, the Prairie Chicken Arts Festival Facebook page announced that due to a car accident Bryner’s 4 p.m. demonstration on Friday, July 19, was canceled.
Bryner said he is disappointed that he can’t participate as he has done in years past.
“I plan my whole year around this festival,” he said.
Bryner won first place in the amateur chalk art competition last year and the year before, and Bryner admits that he never knows exactly what he’s going to create with chalk until the morning of the competition.
“Honestly, I usually pick what I’m going to do the morning I get there,” he said.
Bryner said he was starting to think up some ideas yesterday such as an underwater scene of an octopus and a shipwreck or a realistic goldfish on string fashioned like a helium balloon. But those plans will have to wait for next year, as will his wood carving demonstrations.
Bryner has been carving wood with chainsaws for eight years after he made a bear out of a tree he had cut down. The photo of that bear was posted on Facebook and it blew up, Bryner said. The Kewanee police officer and artist now has a Facebook page, Bryner’s Chainsaw Carving and a YouTube channel. He often creates works of chainsaw art and donates them to raise money for kids with cancer. His gnomes were a very popular draw at the art festival last year and he said he would have probably created a few more.
Bryner said while he’s down and out for this year’s art festival, he’ll still be present downtown during the weekend and he’ll be back next year to participate.
“I’m here to support them in any way I can,” he said.
