He's spent the past 12 years as a chainsaw artist, but now Danny Peterson has become something of a detective as well.
The Chemainus artist is still tallying up his losses after someone broke into his studio early Wednesday morning and made off with various carvings.
"I've heard before that sometimes they'll go in with a list, if it's kind of organized, they'll go in with a list of certain things that somebody wants," Peterson told CTV News Friday.
Some of the pieces stolen include distinct face carvings that Peterson says are unmistakably his.
"They stand out so much, they're like a fingerprint. It'll be so obvious," he said.
Peterson's case is one in a series of recent art-related thefts on central Vancouver Island.
Earlier this week, someone stole a four-foot-tall aluminum dragon statue from Maffeo Sutton Park in Nanaimo.
The piece of public art was meant to be on display for a year, but now only the pillar it stood on remains.
Elsewhere, a 300-pound Chinese terracotta statue was stolen in Lantzville.
"It's going to take at least two strong individuals to cart that off into a truck," said Nanaimo RCMP spokesman Const. Gary O'Brien. "The chances of being detected are extremely high and it's really not worth it."
While the owner of that statue is hoping police catch up with the thief, the owner of a retail store in Nanaimo believes karma will nab the crook that stole her $3,800 Buddha head.
"It is a labradorite Buddha head, it came from the Himalayans. It took six months for it to be carved," said owner Terry Lynn Boyle, who hopes the thief will see the error of his or her ways and return it.
Police say they have no reason to believe any of the thefts are connected, but say it's ironic that so many of the recent thefts have been of statues.
