Its Heyday Long Past, Wildlife Wood Carving Looks to Broaden Its Appeal

Competitions are getting scarce. Crowds are dwindling. Collectors are dying out. Can this American art form survive?

When Gary Eigenberger was 14 years old, he went out behind his grandparents鈥 tavern in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, took a pocket knife to a two-by-four, and whittled a duck. That was nearly 50 years ago. He鈥檚 been carving ever since. A full-time artist since 1999, Eigenberger wrests vivid scenes of avian life from blocks of wood: a Common Loon spreading its wings over water, a Least Bittern taking flight from a reed, a deceptively lifelike Ruddy Duck decoy, painstakingly painted by hand.

His art form is known as wildfowl wood carving. Each of Eigenberger鈥檚 pieces starts with extensive photo research, followed by a clay model whose contours he sketches onto basswood, his preferred medium. Then he carves, first with a bandsaw, followed by smaller and smaller knives. Rotary bits and burning tools help add texture and detail. To sculpt feathers, Eigenberger sometimes burns up to 160 barb lines per square inch.

鈥淭his medium requires multiple talents,鈥 he says. 鈥淵ou have to be a sculptor, a designer, a painter, an engineer. You have to roll all of these professions into one art form, and I think that鈥檚 what makes it so unique.鈥

Eigenberger has been able to  in carving, but he and others believe its future is in danger. They鈥檙e getting older, and they fear that, in an era of instant gratification, not enough young people will dedicate themselves to a demanding form whose collectors are dying out and selling their pieces. 鈥淭his thing could disappear and be forgotten if somebody doesn鈥檛 come out and say something,鈥 Eigenberger says. 鈥淚f this dies, I think a lot is going to go with it.鈥

Art or craft?

Wildfowl wood carving can trace its roots to the Native American practice of . Sport hunters learned this approach, and by the 18th century began using decoys made from softwoods like cedar and pine. Around the turn of the 20th century, some carvers started making decoys for display, not utility, and collectors began to take notice, Eigenberger says. Carving鈥檚 artistic value grew further when the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 banned commercial hunting of migratory birds, reducing demand for decoys as practical tools.

To carvers and collectors, the pieces are works of art鈥攙ibrant sculptures that showcase the splendor of birds. But they recognize that many people view carving as a craft, a kind of wooden taxidermy. The distinction is important, they say; Eigenberger believes that wildfowl wood carving, at the level he practices it, must eventually be viewed as art to survive. Greater prestige, he hopes, will help attract a wider audience鈥攁nd more collectors. 

One way to gain that attention could be through interpretive carving, according to San Diego-based carver Daniel Montano. This style allows artists to play around with form without adhering to photorealism. Montano, who works a full-time construction job and carves in his free time, says these designs allow him to best express his creative vision and have earned him his greatest recognition. In 2016, Montano won the top prize in the interpretive category at the Ward World Championship in Ocean City, Maryland, the most prestigious event in carving. He鈥檇 been thinking about the design for his winning piece, a Picasso-influenced Ruddy Duck titled Azul, since high school. 

Montano has also used his interpretive skills to warn of carving鈥檚 precarious future without broader鈥攁nd younger鈥攁ppeal. Flying Into Extinction depicts another Ruddy Duck, but one that  in flight, its skeleton exposed and feathers scattered below. Montano entered this piece at the 2017 Ward show, with a note explaining that the art form couldn鈥檛 survive without new blood. It won third place in the People鈥檚 Choice category. 鈥淲hen you hear 鈥榙uck decoy,鈥 it doesn鈥檛 really sound like a work of art,鈥 he tells 探花精选 magazine. 鈥淚 want carving to broaden up so people realize that this is big. It's not just little decoys, not just little bird carvings鈥攖his is art.鈥

Someone who has always seen the form鈥檚 artistic value is . He started collecting carvings in the mid-鈥50s and now owns more than 3,000 of them. In a sign of how the works have straddled the line between fine art and crafts, Miller loans many of his decoys and decorative pieces to organizations ranging from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art to the country鈥檚 largest Bass Pro Shops location, in Memphis. An outdoorsman and founder of a packaging business, he says his investment in the collection totals somewhere in the seven figures. 

鈥淲e're rather taken by the beauty in the intricacies and the talent it took to make these,鈥 says Miller, who notes that duck hunters and other sportsmen and women, not typical art collectors, have sustained wildfowl wood carving. While he loves the form, he recognizes it鈥檚 in trouble. 鈥淚t鈥檚 true: As a generation of collectors, we鈥檝e seen better days. A lot of this is in the past.鈥

In the 1960s, carving was popular enough that competitions sprang up around the U.S. and Canada. The events gave carvers a chance to talk shop and learn from each other, and to sell their work to eager collectors. With a core of young, enthusiastic artists and the patrons to pay them, wildfowl wood carving by the 鈥70s was expanding from simple decoys to the hyper realistic birds and elaborate scenes that Eigenberger and other carvers specialize in today. These annual gatherings powered that growth, but there aren鈥檛 many left.

鈥淧ut it this way: There are more shows that are gone than ones that are still here,鈥 says , a 17-time winner at the Ward World Championship. He estimates that in the 鈥80s there were about 15 major wood carving shows, compared to around 7 today. 

Shoulder-to-shoulder crowds once flocked to the Ward competition, held annually since 1971. Judges took hours to evaluate all of the high-quality pieces. 鈥淭here were so many people, you couldn't see what was on the table half the time,鈥 Eigenberger says. 鈥淚t was amazing what it was then.鈥 The show still attracts artists from as far away as Australia and Japan, but carvers have noticed a slow decline in attendance and participation over the past 30 years. As the crowds dwindled, so did the prize money. Through most of the 鈥80s and into the early 鈥90s, the top prize at the Ward was $20,000 for a decorative life-size wildfowl. Today, that prize has shrunk to $6,000

A new generation

The Ward Foundation canceled this year鈥檚 championship due to COVID-19, including the youth competition that veteran carvers view as an important once-a-year opportunity to stoke a love of the form among a younger crowd. As Godin sees it, established artists like himself have a responsibility to find ways to bring new generations into the fold. 鈥淵ou can teach a young kid how to carve, but for them to continue doing it, there has to be a passion that comes from inside,鈥 Godin says. 鈥淎nd how to find that or inspire it? That's the big question.鈥

Montano hasn鈥檛 had any luck answering the inspiration question when it comes to the two teens he knows best鈥攈is sons. They鈥檝e shown natural talent with an airbrush but simply have no interest in picking up their father鈥檚 passion. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just so hard to get any young kid into this stuff, because the cool and the wow factor is just not there,鈥 he says. 鈥淵ou give them a laptop and they鈥檒l choose that over a decoy any day. Video games? They don鈥檛 even think twice. They look at a decoy and say, 鈥榃oah, my grandpa had one of those.鈥 鈥 

Montano鈥檚 sons and other young people may look askance at wooden ducks, but some, like 16-year-old Catie Lynch of Maine, have become passionate proponents of carving. Lynch has been honing her skills since the fall of 2017, when her neighbor, a retired science teacher, introduced her to the form. 鈥淲hen I started, I pretty much knew Mallards, and now I know all kinds of ducks,鈥 she says. 鈥淚t opens a whole new world.鈥

Since then, she has participated in four competitions, taking home ribbons from the Ward event in 2018 in 2019. Last year her Green-winged Teal decoy won first place in the show鈥檚 youth division of the marsh duck category. Her love of carving has also spread to her younger siblings and inspired her family鈥檚 love of birds. 

鈥淭hey've all really taken this love for wood carving and pushed it in a direction that I really didn't expect, which is birding,鈥 says Rhonda Lynch, Catie鈥檚 mother,  inspired by nature. 鈥淣ow, whenever we go on a walk or a hike, there's binoculars and cameras involved, and lots of studying of field guides and all of these things that is a great offshoot of their carving.鈥

Catie was disappointed she didn鈥檛 get to show her Northern Pintail drake at this year鈥檚 Ward show, but she says she鈥檚 going to keep sharing her passion with anyone who will listen. Last summer, she held a show at her local library with her two siblings. 鈥淚 think carvers really understand that they need to get the younger generation interested in this,鈥 she says. 鈥淪o every carver I ever met has been really supportive and really just thrilled to see other young people doing it.鈥 

Zealous newcomers like Catie give veteran carvers hope that wildfowl wood carving will continue to find an appreciative audience. 鈥淚t would really hurt me to think that this art form is going to decline to the point where, when I'm gone, it鈥檚 not going to be here anymore,鈥 Godin says. 鈥淚 just hope that doesn't happen.鈥 

While Godin doubts the market can support new full-time carvers, he is optimistic that the art form will endure. Next year鈥檚 Ward World Championship could spark more excitement than it has in a long time, he says, provided it鈥檚 safe to gather again. Artists will be itching to show off their latest work to an eager crowd, catch up with old friends, and maybe sell a few pieces along the way. The packed shows he remembers may never return, but wildfowl wood carving will live to see another year.