Chesapeake Wings Decoys : My Decoy Carving Philosophy
My Name is Michael Dennis Robinson and I carve decoy stools using old hand methods handed down thru the generations on the Chesapeake bay. I sell decoys on this website and also locally. I also do custom carving and can carve any Chesapeake decoy a collector would desire, correct in form, paint and conformation. My decoy blocks are created of the finest woods, paint and other materials.
I was fortunate to grow up on the edge of the bay and saw a lot of the old timers and their way of life before it passed away. I remember big Chesapeake bay retrievers roaming around almost every crab shack and boat pier. Crabs in abundance and crusty old waterman proud of their way of life in the "land of pleasant living" before it gave way to ever larger populations, condos and shiny overpowered speedboats. In my youth I explored, fished, hunted and lived near probably what once were the most famous waterfowl areas in North America. The Millers Island, Middle river, Carroll's Island, Gunpowder river and Bush river country were no stranger to me. I also hunted Waterfowl, Deer, Quail, and Doves in Cecil and Kent and other counties on the eastern shore. I have also spent a lot of time as a guide, backwoodsman and marshrat in country that remains a waterfowl hunting paradise on par with what the Chesapeake bay was a hundred years ago. Alaska.
My ancestors and family go way back in the Chesapeake country and I'm sure my decoy carvings have a genetic component somewhere inside the wood and paint. Fact is, sometimes I feel like my hands and head are being somehow guided by the old historic carvers. For me, decoy carving is all about heritage and I probably have little interest in decoy carving outside of my heritage and in my youth in the 60's wanted little to do with decoys as it all seemed "boring" at the time. I did not go thru a period of producing amateur crude decoys like most carvers, but in fact won 2nd place a local carving contest filled with long time experienced carvers, with my first bird, which was as good a decoy as my recent work.
My decoys are also not the highly feathered detail decorative decoy type. but are considered Traditional - Interpretative. The reason for this is that I feel that the quest to create the ultimate life life decoy can only be in vain as it is quite impossible in my opinion to do so, even if you hand paint 10,000 individual feathers. I am more interested in impressionism than illustration I also believe from doing landscape oil painting that illustration type painting that makes an effort to look like the real thing seldom if ever succeed at looking real and the same can be said of decoys.
The decoy stools I make are meant to be impressionistic in that they are meant to convey the form and nature of the bird without exact detail. I feel this was the case with the best decoy carvers of old. Real waterfowl are seldom still for long and the skeletal and muscle tissues constantly move and change in the light giving impressions that are quite impossible for a still life wood decoy stool to imitate. It is better in my opinion to give an impression or idealized version of how the carver sees the bird and by using the creative process translate these images into decoy bird carving. I believe this was the case with the early Wards for example.
My decoys are intended to invoke a feeling of place and famous names and carvers of the Chesapeake. Somewhere in some long lost decoy shack on some lonely gut slough of the Chesapeake bay, long ago, or in some oyster town workshop, this type of decoy was being carved. I mostly hand chop, cut and finish my decoys by hand, many having no power tools whatsoever used in the blocks construction. Like most bay carvers I borrow liberally from past design features of famous carvers but also plan to keep some my own style and interpretation sometimes. Many of my decoys are exact replicas of the most famous bay carvers such as Holly, The various Barrier Island builders, Hudson and especially the Wards.
Some collectors that have purchased some of my Ward reproduction decoys say that my stools are the most correct and exact Ward reproductions they have seen. They say my ageing is second to none and very accurate as to time period, style, species and paint types.
I also build boats and have built cabins, both log and lumber, trappers shacks, duck blinds, canoe's and canoe paddles and many other wood implements used in the outdoor life. I have been a professional trapper, hunting and fishing guide, logger, and commercial fisherman. To find out what really makes the old decoys "tick" I have back engineered and removed much paint from old bay decoys and dismantled and cut into many to find their secrets of construction, wood types and paint application, age and wear. I mix many types of paint to get the rich patinas and old time look as exact as possible.
My soul is closely connected to the Chesapeake and I was influenced greatly by my uncle who was a decoy carver and was very much like a second father to me. I called him "Mr.Chesapeake" as he had a storehouse of knowledge about the bay seldom equaled and was all conveyed in a simple unassuming matter of fact attitude. Uncle Rod's universe was closely connected to the Susquehanna river and flats and grew up on a farm on the South side of the flats near Aberdeen. My Grandmothers relatives of the family Brehm hailed from Port Deposit on the Susquehanna River up river from Havre de Grace. Below you can view some photos of a very nice Canvasback mini by uncle Rod carved in 1974. Take note of the simplicity of clean lines, blended paint and detail that give a unique realism to the bird, especially for a miniature. Rodney also carved the very best Mini flying Canada goose decoys I've seen to date. I spent many a day with him studying Geese in the Upper bay area in my teens and traveling up and down the bay country hunting and fishing. Rod was both a hunter and a naturalist and I learned a lot from him about birds and waterfowl.
I grew up on the Chesapeake and intend to make my decoys as unique as possible and never carve two of an exact kind if possible. I can feel the gentle hand of uncle Rod guiding me at times while carving, although he is out on his beloved Susquehanna flats in that great duck hunting happy hunting grounds in the sky. My main bird will always be the Canvasback as I grew up around the folklore of this great bird that almost reached mythic proportions to hear Uncle Rod tell it.
Photo of Rodney Sweeney with part of the Concord light at Havre de Grace in the background. I visited the Wards in the 60's with Rod and I know he loved their decoys and gave me an appreciation for their work and lifestyle. I believe the inspiration for the above decoy carved by uncle Rod in 1974 comes from an amalgamation of the Ward and Havre de Grace style decoys.
Mike Robinson (Chesapeake Old Decoys and Chesapeake Wings Decoys)