2006 Spring Edition
Taking it for Granted.
By Curt Johns
Sometimes I wonder if we don’t take too many things for granted. Everyone works hard in preparation for the show, the big weekend arrives and swoosh its gone. You hear many people talking about how unique the ODCCA show is. Everything, the entire venue under one roof.
So many of us are involved in a portion of the show or interested primarily in one aspect of the show we probably fail to appreciate the enormity of it all. Some of the most valuable vintage decoys ever assembled were at this years show. Activities for the kids are available beginning Friday night and go through the entire weekend. Live demonstrations of painting, head carving, carving and painting are going on all weekend. Seminars covering vintage, contemporary and hunting decoys are enough to overwhelm even the most experienced show participant.
I am certainly not suggesting if you are active in helping making this show what it is, to stop. I am only suggesting that each year perhaps we should try and take a few moments for ourselves. Do something different every year. If we are able to do this, we may better understand what our visitors are talking about, when they talk about our show. Enjoy the show, enjoy the fellowship. As Jim Schmiedlin says so well in another article in this newsletter, “ God willing I’ll be there next year”. We hope to see you there as well.
The Passion of Jim Schmiedlin
This was a conversation between Bob Lund and Jim Schmiedlin at 2006 ODCCA Show
Picture of Jim with a few of his decoys.
When did you begin carving?
I started in 1974 the first couple of things were strictly experimental. In 1975 I decided I wanted to try making a set of hand carved wooden hollow decoys that I could use to hunt over in the big water. We were up on Lake Erie during perch fishing season in early October and it was early duck hunting season and we got to witness some guys’ layout gunning and they were really doing some shooting. I said to my friend John Price, “John”; you see what those guys are doing! “That is what we are going to be doing next year”. I kept to my word; I got a set of plans and built a layout boat with the help of my Uncle John Schmiedlin. The same John who did the taxidermy of my duck mounts was also very handy with carpentry and helped me build the layout boat. In the following fall of the next year we had our layout boat.
I worked on amassing a whole rig of wood duck decoys, mostly bluebills, cans and for later in the season Golden eyes. This was the beginning, once I started layout gunning on the big water over a big spread of decoys I knew this was the way I wanted to shoot ducks. I never wanted to return to marsh hunting or hunting from a shore blind. I wanted to be out there on the big open water in among my own decoys and lots of them. I will not hunt over anything but my own hand made decoys. Since that time I have never hunted over plastic decoys in my rig and will never use them.
We travel a bit and we have hunted Lake Erie and a number of different places in Ohio and New York. We have hunted in western New York, Lake Ontario many times and have traveled as far west as Lake St. Claire. Then in the early 80’s we started going to Long Island to hunt the ocean to hunt scooters and old squaw. This was a real challenge to hunt the ocean with the tidal currents, wind going one way and current another way. It was tough, but the rewards were there and I expanded my mounted waterfowl collection. To this date I have expanded my collection of 45 mounted birds of museum quality mounts. I have mounts of almost every species but I am missing a Barrow Golden Eye, a Cinnamon teal, Spectacled and King Eider.
We have on occasion shot scooters in Lake Erie. In 1977, I made Scooters and almost every year since then I have made a few. I have tried many different styles and I keep changing each year. I am always changing what I think is the “magical ultimate decoy”. In a way I hope, I never reach the ultimate decoy because there will be nothing left to challenge me. What I am making next year will be different from anything I have ever made. I made every species of duck you can image and some things that I would not use. I have made some fulvous tree ducks and black bellied tree ducks and even made a cinnamon teal even though I have never shot a cinnamon teal.
I have slowed down in my travels and have not gone back to the ocean since 1990 as it is a hard trip to travel with flat tires and mechanical breakdowns. You have to be so dedicated to do what we do. It is total love for what we do the dedication to hunt. I am glad I have had this in my blood because I have some wonderful, wonderful memories. I have kept a log of all my hunting trips; it starts in 1960 to the present. There are no years that I have not kept a log. I can see who I hunted with, where I was at, what I shot and I can add up all the birds I have taken in my life time. I love to hunt ducks, I love to shoot them, but I hate to kill them.
The carving world today has a deep respect for what you do. Is there anything that you would suggest to the carvers of today?
One thing I would suggest to the carver, if he is a hunter and he carves. Make decoys to use, make them functional tools. Your hunting will be much more rewarding when you are shooting birds over those hand made, wooden decoys that are sitting in the water in front of you. They are fun to look at. My rigs are 60 or 70 decoys at a time. My rig is always combinations, not only species, but samples of my years of carving of many different decoys of early to current decoys, some of the newest and everything in between. When the hunting is slow I look at my decoys and they bring back memories. These are some of my early Blue bills and scooters. I look at my decoys in the water and to see how they perform in the water. My decoys are generally broad and oversize decoys that float well in the water. I would suggest to any young carver to make a real decoy that you can use in the water. Use your decoys and your hunt will be greatly rewarded, you will get more out of your hunt.
When did you come to your first ODCCA show?
I came to the first show in 1980 to the show in Sandusky, Ohio. Someone had told me about the show and I wanted to see what the show was about. I was in the early stages of carving and my stuff was not so great. So I went to the show and I met Bill Green, who was running the show at the time, he was a wonderful old guy. I got to meet Dick Lancaster and many of the old timers. The one thing that came out of this was the great guys I met who had a common interest and passion for decoys, some only with collecting, some only carving others who hunted and carved and that is where I fit in.
You do not compete anymore. Do you have any thoughts on competing?
When I used to compete, I would take decoys out of my rig. Most guys made decoys for the competition and not for hunting. I did really well competing with my decoys and I almost always took a ribbon with everything that I entered. In 1986, I won the best of show in the hunting decoy competition with a Blue Wing teal that was in my rig for a whole year before the competition. It made me really feel good to win with a real decoy from my rig.
There is much interest in carving hunting decoys that carvers are making for the pool competition. It is one of the fast growing competitions and we are moving back to basic decoys.
That is good!
Your perspective of carving and hunting over your own decoys is right on the money
!All of this was not done by design. I am really flattered by all this fuss the people are making about my decoys. I did not have a plan, things just evolved. Thankfully I have some artistic abilities, I used do some sketching and flat painting. A lot of people thought I had a lot of talent. The carving thing I kind of fell into because I just wanted to hunt over my handmade carved decoys.
I know you have passion, describe your vision when you are carving.
I envision whatever specie I carve. I do not use the actual duck or pictures to make my decoys. My decoys are always out of proportion. That decoy is a vessel and it is not to be carved in the shape or size of a real duck. There are certain proportions that should be larger than life size. I make my bodies larger than the real bird. The decoy is a vessel to function well in the water. We hunt in the big water and a lot of time the water is choppy. I like big flat wide bottom decoys and a big fat chunky bird is always bigger than life size. I try to make the head and bill like the actual specie
without looking at the real bird or actual picture, but what I picture in my mind. One of things when we are hunting I look at the birds we have shot in the boat. I look at a blue bill for example and look at the body, a pumpkin seed shaped bird. I develop a picture in my mind of the decoy. When I carve a Blue bill they may not actually look at all like a blue bill. They may be out of proportion but they ride good. But if they don’t, the next time I make that specie I will make it better.
You are a true artist and you have a lot of fans in this collecting and carving world.
This is motivation and it really is. People tell me this and I do not take it lightly. This payment that I can not describe and I could sell everyone of my decoys and make some money, but I would rather have friends. Look at the people who are here they have real accomplishment and character. We all have one thing in common and that is the love of duck decoys.
Will you be here for the 30th year?
Yes, I plan to be here and it is nice to come renew all my
friendships and meet with all these great people. God willing I’ll be here.
IWCA Competition for Open Working Decoy
JoAnne Watson
IWCA is pleased to announce that Cabela’s Inc. has agreed to partner with the International Wildfowl Carvers Association for the First Cabela’s/IWCA Open Working Decoy Competition at their Dundee, Michigan store on August 6, 2006. All carvers are welcome—there is no pre-qualification. The competition will include both singles and pairs and will be held on the lake which is part of the Cabela’s property. Mail-in entries will be accepted and return shipping is free. Carvers interested in competing should contact IWCA at 360 736-1082, the IWCA website www.iwfca.com or JoAnne Watson jobyrn@comcast.net
Prize money for singles will be Best of Show $300, $200, and $100. Best of Category will be $75, $50 and $35. Best in species will receive a $25 merchandise certificate from Cabela's.
The pairs will be judged for best marsh, diver, goose and confidence, and sea duck with the same prize money as the singles except there will be no best in species.
There are no purchase awards for this competition.
The IWCA Style Hunting Decoy Championship Contest will be held on Saturday, August 5, 2006 indoors, as it has the last two years. Purchase awards will include the top 5 birds at $1,000 for Best of Show, $900 for Second Best of Show, $800 for Third Best of Show and $750 for Fourth and Fifth Best of Show. Best in Category will be $75, $50 and $35 with $25 Merchandize Certificates for first of species.
Wildfowl Carving Magazine will include winners of these contests in their 2006 Competition Magazine.
Return shipping for mail-in birds for both the working decoy competition and
the IWCA Style Championship will be paid by Cabela's provided they are
returned by UPS, (their contract carrier), and providing the boxes are not
oversized and overweight. No overnight return shipping.
The Chairman’s Letter
Greetings,
The show began with the judging of the Junior Duck Stamp competition. Over 1,000 entries where received this year. The entries were up from the previous year by 400 creations. Rebecca Hinkle and her group did an excellent job. The winner of this years competition was Adam Dornbirer, Bucyrus, OH of a Canada Goose. Runner up winners were Emma Beale, Maumee, Lily Spang, Toledo, Jessica Leininger, New Waterford and Curtis Wood, Graytown. The awards competition was held on April 29, 2006 in Amherst, OH at Mark Costilow’s theater. Thanks for another excellent job by Rebecca Hinkle, Gary Luman, Bruce DiVaccaro and Mark Costilow. Please support Junior Duck Stamps. They cost $5 per year and are worth more as soon as they are purchased. Please let us know if you want one and we will arrange to send them to you. All of the proceeds of the sale will be put back in the Ohio program. Our goal is to make every child aware of waterfowl and its wonderful heritage.
The Thursday night seminar featured five of the more knowledgeable collectors producing some very interesting projections for the current and future of decoy collecting. The overflowing crowd enjoyed a glass of wine and listened to comments by Allen Haid, George Quay, Paul Brisco, Dick McIntyre and Joe Tonelli. We hope to have excerpts of this excellent seminar in our future newsletter for those of who were unable to attend.
Another excellent preview and auction was conducted by Ted Harman. Many great birds were sold at this auction. A Mason Blue wing teal and some great miniatures by Elmer Crowel were the highlights of this year’s auction.
Tommy Stewart presented an excellent seminar on the importance of going to the field to do drawings of shorebirds. Attendees learned that these drawings would become important tools for producing the pattern. Tommy presented an excellent slide presentation covering shorebirds. He showed how feather patterns were created and did a step by step painting of this shorebird.
Jim Wilson, Charlie Hall and many others conducted the Kid’s seminar featuring the Shoveler that was done in Vintage style. Our thanks go to Jim and Golden Paints who provided the paints for the seminar.
During the opening of the show the Golden Goose award was presented to Geno Brana for his dedicated work as the head of security for all operations. Geno also takes a special interest in talking with all the vendors and is always there for the new vendor who shows up. Tom Humberstone was awarded the Presidents Award for Best Dealer table for 2006. Tom has been a vendor in the ballroom for years and shows his strong support each year.
The Gold Life Membership award was awarded to Bob and Bonnie Kasper for their outstanding work on the auction where Bob does the auctioneering and Bonnie does the cashier’s work for the auction. In addition the other members of the Kasper family take part during the auction and we can not thank them enough for their hard work and dedication. The first Golden Eye Award was presented to Scott Wodrich in recognition of his years of significant contributions to the success of the Ohio Decoy Collectors and Carvers Association. Scott has served as the Vice President of the Show and director of the organization for nearly 20 years.
Each year Decoy Magazine and Waterfowl Carvers Magazine provide their support to the ODCCA. Their participation in the Vintage Contest, Peoples Choice Award and strong support in their magazines are appreciated. Thank you Joe Engers and Bill Ensign for all you have done for us by providing us the national support.
A special thanks to John Race for the decoy he donated to the auction. Thank you Tom Whitlock and Betty Odine for sponsoring the Open Shorebird Contest and the Birds in the Nest. The carvers thank you and we thank you again.
The vintage competition caused a usual stir in the Corkers Lounge this year. The first was the crowning of the best of show of the Sleeper Canies Mallard. This may be one of the more important decoys ever presented to those who attended; in the many years the show has been held. With equal billing was the huge collection of Jim Schmiedlin decoys that were on display. After the competition Jim took time to visit with all of the collectors and myself to talk about his passion of making decoys. We will present this discussion in this issue. There were many excellent decoys presented by our collectors. Collectors Editions of the 2006 show brochures are available by contacting Jon Deeter or Ken Cole. This is a must have item for any collector.
The 30th year is drawing in on us. The painting featuring a Redhead drake, vintage redhead, wren and heron covered all we have become during the past 30 years. This great painting was created by Dick Bensen, Washington Court House, OH. Think about volunteering at the 30th Show. Your work could result in a one of kind token of our appreciation. Details of additional events planned are already in the works. Without letting the cat out of the bag, there will be a “battle of the wood chips” that has never been done at a show. Battle plans are being drawn, but one has to be careful as there will be Rules and Regulations to follow.
May your search for that special decoy be a success and to those who carve may the chips you have made become a decoy that is your passion.
Bob Lund
Chairman Executive Board
IWCA Board Meeting
The IWCA Annual Board of Directors Meeting will be held Friday, August 4, 2006 at the Cabela’s store in Dundee, Michigan. All Board Members are expected to be present. IWCA pays Board Member lodging for the night before and the night of the meeting at an adjacent motel. All IWCA Members are welcome but only Board Members will be allowed to vote. If you are not a Board Member but are planning to be present at the Board Meeting, please let the IWCA Secretary know in advance so that space will be available. IWCA Member input in writing is encouraged and must be available to the IWCA Secretary by July 15 for inclusion in the Agenda. THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY FOR INPUT TO NEXT YEAR’S RULES AND PROGRAMS. The meeting is an intense full day from 8 am to 5 pm. Items not on the final agenda may be but probably will not be discussed due to time constraints.
All IWCA Members are encouraged to come for the weekend to
enjoy, compete and/or assist with the contests.
Signature Bird Winner
By Brad Falkinburg
Every year, the winner of the Open Division Floating Decorative Best of Show is given a wooden decoy blank of the ‘show bird’ for the next year and asked to paint the head of a decoy to be used as the following years signature bird. Jeff Duxberry of Dux’ Dekes is generous enough to donate the wooden bird each year (Thank you again). Since Jamie Welsh won Best of Show honors last year (2005), he had to paint the signature bird for this years show. Every year, all of the carvers who enter a floating decorative decoy sign the bird, preferably when they sign in so they don’t forget. Then on Sunday around noon, all the carvers’ names are entered into a drawing for this collectable carving and a name is drawn. This year Tom Fagerlin of Belding, MI was drawn as the winner of the northern shoveler signature bird. This year's best of show winner was Pat Godin with his hen pintail. Therefore, Pat will be painting the head and blocking in the rest of the body of a red head for the signature.
2006 Decorative Contest
By Brad Falkinburg
The judges for this year's contest were: Peter Palumbo of Commack, NY, carver and winner of many Best of Show ribbons at contests around the country. Peter Palumbo is a High School art teacher. Hen pintails are his favorite duck and he loves spending time in the salt marsh and meadows where they gather. Paul Foytak Jr. of Clarkston Michigan, won the IWCA Hunting Decoy Championship in 1998 when it was held at the California Open contest. Paul owns a company that supplies computer products to other companies. Paul loves to carve pintails and mallards. He has won Best of Show at New Orleans, ODCCA, and the now defunct North American, some of the toughest hunting decoy contests in North America. George Kruth of Moon Twp, PA, has been creating award winning wildlife art for over 22 years. He is a master carver and highly sought after carving instructor. Collectors in North America, Europe, and Asia prize his true-to-nature work. George has won numerous "Best in Show" awards, "Peoples Choice" awards and has been designated the prestigious title of Master Wildfowl Artist by the Ward Foundation. We thank the judges for the impartial job they did judging all the decoys.
We would like to congratulate all forty-four (44) carvers who entered sixty-one (61) floating decorative decoys in this year's contest. Last year we had 46 carvers enter 91 carvings, so we had 2 fewer carvers enter this year and had 30 fewer carvings than last year. This downward spike can be attributed to an unusually large amount of birds entered last year. We had another very good showing from carvers across the country and Canada as you can see by the hometown of a few of these carvers. Not only mail-ins, but by the many carvers who travel long distances to attend our annual show. The carvings entered represented twelve (12) states (IL, KY, MD, MI, MN, NC, NE, NJ, NY, OH, PA, and WI) and one Canadian province (Ontario).
The Open division had nineteen (19) birds entered by twelve (12) carvers. The Best of Show bird was a beautiful carving of a hen pintail carved by Pat Godin of Paris, Ontario. Pat is a world-class carver and has won Best of Show honors at every major competition in North America. Pat has won ‘Best in World’ honors in four of the five categories. Work by Pat Godin can be found in the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury, Maryland and in many private collections and has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The prestigious "Birds in Art" exhibition held at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin has featured Pat Godin's work for ten years. In 1993 Pat was invited to represent North American carvers at the opening of the International Bird Carving Exhibition in Yokohama, Japan. Although competitions have provided some of the inspiration for Pat's work, his deepest concern has always been with the cultivation of bird sculpture as an art form. He is 53 years old and has a wife and three kids. Kevin Bodnar of Coraopolis, Pennsylvania won 2nd Best of Show for his awesome carving of a drake canvasback. Third Best of Show went to Kinny Rice of Farmville, North Carolina with an exquisite Atlantic brant.
Ten (10) carvers entered fourteen (14) birds in the Intermediate division. John McCafferty of Seeleys Bay won Best of Show with his drake wood duck. Every year, the name of the Best of Show winner in the intermediate Division is engraved on the Robert Franta Memorial plaque and displayed at our show. John’s name has been added to the long list of accomplished carvers. John McCafferty of Seeleys Bay also won second Best of Show with his carving of a drake ring neck. Duane Jordan of Carthage, Illinois, took third Best of Show with his hen northern shoveler.
The Novice division had eighteen (18) carvers enter twenty-eight (28) carvings. Congratulations to Don Fetters of Canton, Ohio who won Best of Show in the novice division with his hen blue winged teal. Second and Third Best Of Show went to Rocky Freed of Whitehall, Michigan with his drake bufflehead and his drake wood duck respectively. The novice carvers should all be proud of their fine work, keep it up.
Steve Secord and I would like to thank the volunteers who helped with the registration of the decoys, both Friday night and Saturday morning (Vicki Secord, Garrett Secord, Matt Falkinburg, and Herb Falkinburg). Vicki not only helped register birds Friday night, she also recorded the winning birds as they were pulled out of the judging tank. Matt and Garrett helped us set up all three judging tanks as well as handling all the carvings and announcing the winners. Thanks again everyone, hope to have your help again next year.
Next year will be our 30th annual show, March 16-18, 2007. This show will be one to remember, as many special events will be planned. If you can’t attend next year, please consider mailing in an entry to me at the following address: 1682 Pine Drive, Avon, Ohio 44011. Please call me, Brad Falkinburg at (440) 937-9113 or e-mail me at twofalkinburgs@yahoo.com if you have any questions regarding this contest at our show.