J.P. Hand sits at his workbench inserting a freshly painted rig of 10 brant decoys right into a slot bag whereas we get able to hunt within the morning. He constructed every brant from three items of Atlantic white cedar with the sort of instruments most individuals have of their woodsheds—a hatchet, some knives, and a little bit of sandpaper. However while you choose one up, it’s gentle, as a fowl is gentle, and appears so pure it’s as if it hatched from a wood egg.
The whole lot about Hand’s store appears to be from the previous. The furnishings appears to be like as if it was made greater than a century in the past, and there’s a noticeable lack of energy instruments, save for a band noticed, a drill, and a desk noticed getting used solely as a desk. But the decoys he makes, and the strategies he makes use of to make them, are as related as ever.
Retailer-bought plastic decoys, with detailed wings and feathers, could appear to be geese, however Hand’s wood decoys exude life and perspective. Every of them shows a sort of persona—a mix of the fowl’s and his personal. Hand began carving at 17 when he couldn’t afford to purchase decoys, and now, at 68, he’s made a residing carving and guiding out of his house and small farm close to Cape Could Courtroom Home, New Jersey.
He’s additionally a historian, tracing his household’s historical past again 325 years to when the primary of his ancestors settled on the South Jersey coast and ultimately began carving decoys themselves. Right this moment, he sells his decoys to hunters and collectors all around the world and has taken on plenty of apprentices.
Like all good artist, Hand is aware of how to take a look at issues. He’s always observing wild birds at his farm and on the saltwater marshes close to his house, and he’s all the time in search of methods to make use of the pure supplies he finds close by to painting them. Above all, he can see the character of a fowl and freeze it right into a wood decoy that by some means seems to have all of the motion of the actual factor.
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The results of his work is greatest described by Hand’s pal and fellow carver Pete Peterson, who left me this observe earlier than I headed house after our hunt: “A hand-carved decoy is poetry within the making and magic on the water—a person’s autograph in wooden.”
(This picture essay seems within the Dwelling Difficulty, the newest digital version of Discipline & Stream.)
