MANSFIELD, Ohio– It’s 9 a.m. in Delaware County and Brian McNeal is about to get to work.

• Brian McNeal is a carpenter and artist in Delaware County
• McNeal creates memorabilia made from the oak tree featured in The Shawshank Redemption
• Fans of The Shawshank Redemption are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film

“I think the best compliment to God’s design is that people will look at a piece of wood and speculate that it is not real because of how beautiful it is,” Brian McNeal said.

McNeal is a carpenter and artist. He owns Natural Wood Mirrors.

“I think that every tree is like a fingerprint," he said. "It is unique to itself, and it has its history and its own life that it lived at that point and to take that wood and make it last another few hundred years really gives it a second life,."

McNeal hopes to do justice for a tree already immortalized in film - the "Shawshank" oak tree featured in the 1994 film, The Shawshank Redemption.

The tree fell in Mansfield in 2016, and for the last three years, McNeal has sanded, sliced and even burned the wood, giving it new life as memorabilia centered around the film.

“I would play the movie here in the shop in the background, maybe up to four times a day a just to see what I would pick up on because each time I watch it, there would be one extra thing that I wouldn’t see the time before or heard or really understood the significance of it,” he said.

His work will be on display this weekend as the film, which was shot here in Ohio, celebrates its 25th anniversary.

“A lot of people say that if you can find the job that you love to do, then you’re set, and I’ve definitely found that and I cherish every moment I spend out here,” McNeal said.

He admits he’s a bit biased when it comes to choosing his favorite scene.

“Andy, describing the tree in the movie, knowing his plan and how to execute his plan and being so close to where he needed to be and Red’s confusion as to what was actually happening, I think that that really testifies that we don’t always know what’s going on in life around us and we have to have hope that there is something that we can’t see at work that’s going to get us where we need to get,” McNeal said.

Because you either get busy living or get busy dying, right?

“I really love this project, and I really love what I do, and I truly don’t know how I could be doing something different,” he said.