Those Aren't Feathers

I attended the Easton Waterfowl Festival in November, on Maryland’s beautiful Eastern Shore. Once again, I photographed a lot of the work on display and posted pictures on our website. I also posted a few pictures on Facebook, and was amused to see that I caused a little marital discord by doing so. A man saw my photograph of Richard Reeves’ pintail hen and showed it to his wife, who insisted that the bird had real feathers. He explained that the feathers were carved (as indeed they were). I don’t know if he was able to convince her or not.

Richard’s pintail was just one of many beautiful carvings I saw over the weekend. Tom Horn was this year’s Master Carver, and he had a dazzling selection of his pieces on hand. Last year’s Master Carver, Al Jordan, was there too (and you can see more of Al’s work in this very issue). One of the great things about Easton, for me anyway, is seeing how many of the magazine contributors are present, people like Jeff Rechin, Glenn McMurdo, Bill Kennedy, and Tom Baldwin.

My next stop will be the Core Sound Decoy Festival in Harkers Island, North Carolina, over the first weekend of December. I’ve never been to this show before, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, and I’m really looking forward to my visit. A lot of great carving comes out of that part of the world, and I expect to see a lot of fine work during my weekend stay. Once again, you will be able to see pictures on our website. I just hope they don’t provoke any more arguments.

Read the rest of this article in Wildfowl Carving Magazine's Winter 2016 issue.