A Brockport woman is working on a wood sculpture that may be her biggest project ever.

We have more on how this work of art came together.

The carver says she’d just gotten back from her fair season when a visitor came into her shop with a big request.

Dawna Ceriani says she tried bookkeeping, and running a bakery, but eventually chainsaw carving took over. She and her husband taught themselves the craft about 16 years ago.

“To see the completion of it, to know that I start with something blank and then I can complete something, it’s such a good feeling,” says Ceriani.

Then in January, along came her biggest project yet.

“This nice fella had stopped in from the VFW over in New Bethlehem and he had asked me if I’d be interested in doing this piece and he showed me this picture,” says Ceriani. “And he asked me if I’d be able to do this.”

The flag raising at Iwo Jima– certainly a difficult task. First, family members came up with the base, thenDdawna took it piece by piece.

“I started with the first guy, Harlon here, and I built him first and then I actually had slabs put over here and I started just building them out to piece them all together,” says Ceriani.

Figuring out how the arms and legs fit together was hard. She used dowels, and lots of glue.

In real life, there’s been debate over who’s who in the photo. For the sculpture, the tricky part was placement at the VFW.

“Because really only this part is going to be presented because it’s going up against the wall, so these last two guys won’t even be visible, but we did do all of them on it,” says Ceriani.

“She did a wonderful job,” says one visitor.

Visitors who stop are admiring the piece. Dawna wanted to know more about Iwo Jima and watched the movie “Flags of Our Fathers.”

“It was a pretty nasty battle, really heartbreaking,” she says.

Ceriani says she’s been doing some finishing touches and is about ready to install the sculpture in New Bethlehem.