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| My graphite drawing of Matt's carved Cormorant |
16 years ago today I started this blog, knowing nothing about blogging.
But I bumbled along, kept going because I just love my art journey
and this seems to be a good way to keep track of it.
(Except for the fact that a few of my posts from early days
seem to be gone ... ?)
I decided to publish my January blogiversary posts as a guest interview.
Last year I interviewed Cristine Crooks. You can see that post HERE.
This year my wood-worker, wood-carver husband has agreed to an interview!
Find your fav beverage and get comfy for this ...
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| Matt with his traditional Dowitcher decoy |
He made the Pelagic Cormorant (below) and it is SO lovely.
I try to remember to do a small drawing of each of his carvings
(pic at the top of the page).
Here are a couple photos of Matt's carvings and
different stages of work.
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| Mew Gull in-progress |
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| Removing wood from a Raven |
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| Surf Scoter decoy with keel |
Q. What is/are your medium(s)?
A. The primary material in my bird carvings is, of course, wood. I favor red cedar because it is naturally weather resistant and that was important for the hunting decoys I started out making. It's also soft and easy to shape, fairly light, and takes glue and paint well. I've split and milled pieces from logs but most often I buy planks at the lumberyard and laminate them to get the size of block I need for a particular piece. Alder is my second choice because it has a consistent density so is easy to carve; I can sometimes find suitable pieces in the wake of the crews that trim under the powerlines around town. Yellow cedar is another rot-resistant wood but it has variable density and is a challenge to carve. All of these are local wood species, which ties into my effort to use resources found in Southeast Alaska. Basswood and tupelo are wonderful for carving but I don't really want to get into using (or shipping) wood from other regions.
Oh, and I use acrylic paints over a primer layer to color my birds; it forms what is essentially a protective layer of plastic around the carving, and then I finish with a layer of paste wax, which lends a nice sheen as well as a bit more protection.
Q. Where are you from, and does that affect how and what you create?
A. I grew up in Rockland County, New York which was rural when I was born and had morphed into a suburb of New York City by the time I left for grad school in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1974. I was vaguely aware of bird decoys but had nothing directly to do with them; I think the main effect is that when I became interested in carving decoys after we moved to Juneau in 1991 I focused initially on the work and styles of prominent historic East Coast decoy makers. I've since learned about and grown to admire the work of early decoy carvers on the West Coast and am still expanding my horizons as I learn about Mississippi Valley carvers.
Q. What brought you to working the way you work?
A. Once I began learning about decoys it became evident that the best of the old carvings, the ones that showed artistic skill, had been bought up by wealthy art collectors during a craze dating to the mid-'60s, and when pieces became available they were selling at extraordinarily high prices. It struck me as ironic that most of the people who had acquired these birds had little affinity for their original purpose, and unfortunate that those carvings would never be accessible for those interested in how they were intended to be used. Knowing that I'd never be able to own one of the classic originals I decided to make my own to the best of my ability. I also decided to carve my decoys by hand, mostly to see if I could make a decent quality bird in the same way that the old-timers did. This self-imposed rule of using no power tools after bandsawing a rough blank and drilling the eye holes is still my way of doing things in my shop.
Q. Who are your most important artistic influences?
In terms of my carving, old-time East Coast decoy makers such as Elmer Crowell (MA), "Shang" Wheeler (CT), Charles Sumner Bunn (NY (work formerly attributed to Wm. Bowman)), Harry Shourdes (NJ), and a crowd of other carvers who incorporated a good sense of form into their working decoys.
Q. What is the most difficult or challenging aspect of your work?
A. There are three aspects to carving birds that are particularly taxing. The first is symmetry; it's no good to carve only one side of the bird perfectly - the other side must be carved to match! There have been many times when I've been pleased with how a detail or area on a carving has turned out only to face the challenge that it needs to be mirrored perfectly on the opposite side.
The second big challenge is to represent a soft, fluffy, air-filled surface (i.e., feathers) with a hard material such as wood - there is not a perfect answer, but having the proper contours and colors helps.
Finally, I am pulled between a desire to be free and impressionistic with my carving and painting and a tendency towards realism springing from my career as a wildlife biologist.
Q. Does your art help you in other areas of your life?
A. Being retired, I think it's really valuable to have something to do each day, and in addition to the house-related chores it's good to have work waiting for me in my shop, whether it be carving a bird or maintaining and sharpening tools, etc. It's a great thing to be able to spend time doing something I really enjoy and it's also great that it keeps me occupied.
Q. Has your style changed over time?
A. Yes, in at least two ways. At first, knowing that carving is subtractive and that once material is removed it cannot be replaced, it's difficult to remove enough wood - one is constantly afraid of ruining the piece by lopping off too much. As a result I know that my first Scaup decoy bodies had rather the look of loaves of bread - flat sides with small rounded corners up to a barely rounded back! It takes awhile to develop the confidence needed to remove enough material to reveal the contours of a bird's outer surface, and the birds I carve now are much curve-ier.
Secondly, I've progressed over time from a strict adherence to waterfowl species to a greater variety of other bird families. I began carving decoys because I wanted to hunt waterfowl and didn't really want to buy plastic factory decoys; besides, there was an allure to making and using my own. After carving a puddle duck rig of Mallards and then a sea duck rig of Scoters I realized I didn't need additional hunting decoys but still wanted to carve, so I progressed to 'confidence decoys' such as gulls and herons and then began carving shorebird decoys (solely decorative - hunting of most shorebirds was banned in 1914) and eventually based on requests I've expanded into carving hummingbirds, warblers, kingfishers & Steller's Jays, loons, cormorants, Great Blue Herons and even a few birds of prey.
However, a consistent theme throughout my work is to craft a piece that is an accurate representation of the form and behavior of a particular bird species without laboring over a photographic level of detail; my carvings spring from a working decoy origin, and working decoys were tools meant to represent birds with 'just enough' detail to make them believable.
Q. How can we find you and your work online?
A. I have some of my carved birds shown on a Facebook page called
After experimenting with selling in a retail setting I've fallen back to carving birds
on commission only
(people want the bird they want, not the one your've already carved!).
Thank you Matthew!
I appreciate all the time and thought you went through for this interview!
Matt and I go into our respective studios
coming out now and then ask each other for advice on this or that, and I agree that having projects you love to do, and challenge you - are
good for the psyche! (retired or not)
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| Whimbrel |
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| My drawing of another of Matt's whimbrel carvings |
Thank you very much for reading my studio journal.
I will relay any questions you might have for Matt.
If you haven't been to my website, where you can find original paintings,
here is the link:
🎨
Happy Painting (& carving!)
