Wisconsin Life

>> Stress just goes away when I come through those two doors right here. When you come in, it's like the rest of the world goes away and I can go back to some of the memories when I was a kid. You know, I see a picture of my dad up here, you know, or a decoy that I carved 20 years ago. I think I was about 12 years old when I started. I've always loved birds. I've just always been fascinated. The only reason my dad could go duck hunting was if I came along. Every Saturday and Sunday, I remember waking up in the bottom of a skiff, duck hunting. I always was thinking about it. In varsity baseball, the coach told me to go in, and I said, "No," I'm carving a decoy with my shoes off on the bench.

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When I was 13 or 14 years old, you know, making $25-$35 for a decoy, that was pretty good money. I've just always strove to get better at it and trying to get more realistic at it. I did a mourning dove that won at the world championships. I took it to him and I showed it to him, and he said, "I can't believe it's not real." And that, to me, was another big reward that, you know, I finally accomplished something. I made my dad happy, you know. I was working probably 70-80 hours a week doing it. I won at all these contests. Well, then I ended up getting orders on top of orders on top of orders. And I could never do what I really wanted to do. So I just kind of got burnt out from it. I did my first feather about three years ago at Christmastime. This is a secondary flight feather of an eagle. It looks like an "S". It's got a leading edge and then it's got a trailing edge that comes up like this. I've got to lay out where the rachis is. The rachis is the center of the feather. I just came back down in my shop and started whittling again. This is what's so nice about the bass, that it just-- As long as your chisels are very, very sharp, it just peels off really nicely. You can only carve one mallard. One mallard's a mallard. But now, there's 5,000 different feathers on a mallard, so I can carve 5,000 feathers. A feather, we all just take for granted. But it's one of the most amazing things that there are, is that this thing can fly! This is a red tail hawk feather here. So now what I'm gonna try to do is what I call, is put the life into it. That's by creating differences in heights, splits. I showed everybody at Christmastime, and they were just, all my family were in awe. They're going-- They were all touching it, going, "This isn't real?" So now comes the wood burning part. I'm burnishing the wood, and I'm creating a tiny groove. My wife does farmers markets. I took them along with me, because I just sat there with her all day long. I had six pieces that I took along, and I sold all six, just like that. And the light bulb went off and I'm like, this really might be something. We aren't allowed to own a feather, other than a game bird feather. It's a federal offense to have a feather in your possession. People were going, "You can't have those! You can't have those feathers." You know, "What are you doing with those?" And I said, "Well they're not real. They're made out of wood." And then they were like, "Wow, that's really neat!" It's even more special. Then they're trying to see, where is it not real. Where, you know, how did you do this, how did you do that? I use a wet-on-wet technique where, I try to blend the colors when they're wet to give it a little bit softer feel, because feathers are really, really soft. That feather changes, so many different hues through the progression of it. Through wear, through age. I'd go nuts if I didn't have this. My reward is to see a smile on somebody's face, and that I fooled them! That I can make somebody happy. To see the look on their face when they're like, "That's not real? I've got to show my friend!" That'll end up inside, just like this. Again, you can see, it's a little bit different. I change up all the time. There's not one that's ever the same. It's trying to make something as best as I possibly can, and fortunately enough for me, I'm thinking when I'm 80 or 90, that's when I'll finally start to get good at it.