Tri-City Herald - August 20, 1992

When Howard Madsen was growing up, his parents told him to get a good education because money doesn't grow on trees.

Now that Madsen is grown up, he has a tendency to disagree.

He's the owner of Richland's Artistic Treeworks and a Tri-City tree pruner who sees his work as more than just slashing tree limbs and cutting off dead branches.

Instead, he sees it as an art form.

"There's an art to pruning a tree to make it look as good as that tree can look," Madsen said.

With his beard, ponytail and black sunglasses, he looks like he belongs on a Harley rather than up in the branches wielding a pair of clippers.

But Madsen is serious about his work. He, and tree pruners like him, are adamant about trimming trees to the "highest arborist standards" and insist, as with any art, that you have to have the talent to be any good at it.

The tools of their trade do not seem like the delicate instruments of artwork.

But in the right hands, a chain saw, pole pruner and hand snips can make even a sickly and diseased tree or bush into a thing of beauty.

Madsen says he gets his inspiration from the trees themselves.

"The trees talk to me through their structure," he said. "The tree dictates to me how it should be pruned by studying the sructure."

From there, Madsen carefully removes branches, leaving only those that emphasize the best characteristics of the tree and leave it the strongest.

Eyeing his work on a large yellow pine, he explains how he had to thin out the thick horizontal branches because of their poor support at the base.

The tree that is left is a beautiful and exotic specimen with branches that curve and flow like a powerful river.

After 15 years of working with trees, Madsen said he has developed a sixth sense about the living creatures that are the traffic of his business.

"I actually believe I am tuned into trees," he said.

"I can feel when a tree is a good solid tree. I can get in a tree and I can almost feel what that tree wants to happen."

Madsen started Artistic Treeworks in 1983, but he has been working with trees since 1977.

He has been up to 140 feet in the air—hanging by rope and saddle—pruning large trees.

But he also does the delicate topiary and espalier work in which he trims and ties bushes into exotic shapes.