In Rumson, Waterfowl Artists Share Their Craft

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Story and Photos by Joseph Sapia
RUMSON – The scene at the Forrestdale School gymnasium was for the birds.
All hand-carved in wood or other material in the traditional hunter’s decoys method or its offshoot, decoratives: ducks and geese, shorebirds and even songbirds.
“The exhibitors enjoy each other’s company, each other’s artwork,” said Nancee Jo Luciani, the exhibitions coordinator for the New Jersey Wildfowl Carvers Association, based in the borough.
The Two Rivers Exhibition of Sporting Collectible Art, held Saturday, was sponsored by the carvers’ association and Ducks Unlimited –  the Memphis, Tennessee-based group promoting wetlands and waterfowl conservation. The show serves as a fund-raising event for Ducks Unlimited.
About 40 exhibitors from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, along with hundreds of visitors, were on hand for a combination selling, judging and talking about carving.
“To gather like-minds together,” said Luciani, 65, who lives in Manchester.
One of the like-minds was Vince Curran.
“I’ve been into this kind of stuff for a long time,” said Curran, 54, of Point Pleasant. “I have a lot of shorebirds, decoys at my home. Plus, it’s a good cause.”
Curran said he has a collection of about 20 decorative shorebirds.
“A lot of my gunning decoys are now in my collection,” Curran said. “It just reminds me of when I was out on the marsh hunting. It reminds me when I was younger.”
Curran bought a black-bellied plover for $65 from the show’s featured artist, Dave Rhodes, 83, of Ocean City.

John Hanson of Fair Haven with his award-winning plover.
John Hanson of Fair Haven with his award-winning plover.

“I’m a carver, but I am more known for the detail painting,” Rhodes said.
Decoys, for example, traditionally were used to attract birds for hunting, so they were re-painted every so often, Rhodes said. The offshoot, decoratives, were meant for display, so they were more detailed, Rhodes said.
“I’m an outdoorsman, I like to hunt, fish, trap and everything else,” said Rhodes, whose wife is borough native Nancy Gilbert Rhodes.
Rhodes said he began using his “creative abilities” and based his work “on the natural world” around him.
“He (Rhodes) does a nice job – the position (of the birds) and how he paints,” said Jim Carhart, 70, of Wall.
Carhart, who bought a dowitcher from Rhodes, carves a bit.
“Just carving a piece of wood to look like a duck is not difficult,” Carhart said. “To get the painting, ‘That’s a merganser,’ isn’t that difficult. It’s getting to the next step, ‘Whoa!’”
Carhart complimented his friend Kevin Hammell, 60, an experienced carver from Point Pleasant. “His look like feathers. Mine looks like mud.”
Many of the visitors were carvers. Others might not carve, but know a carver.
“Very few people come who are not connected,” said Luciani, who had a table of her work and who also is editor of the newsletter of the New Jersey Decoy Collectors Association. “It’s like the decoy and carving communities are a little secret. People don’t know we exist.”
“You get birders, hunters, woodworkers, too,” said Kathy Marchut, a Roxbury resident who is president of the carvers’ association. “And you get a lot of fishermen. It’s a good group. You get a lot of camaraderie.”
The show was hoping to attract about 500 visitors, Marchut said. Last year, the show raised $3,500 for Ducks Unlimited.
“A lot of carvers support the Ducks Unlimited events throughout the year,” said Frank Pannick, 48, who lives in Upper Freehold and is chair of DU’s Monmouth County chapter. “It’s just a good partnership between two organizations that share common interest.”
Money raised goes to the national Ducks Unlimited, which disperses money around the country for wetlands restoration, Pannick said. In recent years, Ducks Unlimited funded a cleanup and removal of the invasive plant phragmites on an island in the Shrewsbury River.

Scott Paterson with the driftwood he was selling to raise funds for Ducks Unlimited.
Scott Paterson with the driftwood he was selling to raise funds for Ducks Unlimited.

Rumson’s police chief, Scott Paterson, 49, is chair of Ducks Unlimited’s New Jersey Council. Paterson was raising funds for Ducks Unlimited by selling driftwood he finds on beaches between Raritan Bay and Island Beach State Park.
“It’s usually when I’m out hunting,” said Paterson, himself a carver. “I even have friends that drop it off to me, now. I come home and there’ll be a big box of driftwood in front of my house.”
Carvers can use driftwood for the base of their decorative carvings.
John Hanson of Fair Haven won a best of show award in the Contemporary Antique division, which is carving and painting a bird in such a way it that it has a more primitive look of years past.
“It’s a popular, growing division,” said Hanson, 58.
Hanson, a carpenter, entered a rendition of a plover to win.
“Anything within your power to make it look old,” Hanson said. “If it’s too deliberate, it looks fake.”
Because he won the contest, his plover would go up for sale – at $400 for about 16 hours work, not including supplies.
“You would do better as a crossing guard, the hours of labor you put in,” Hanson said.
But Hanson got hooked on decoys.
“It’s just this niche thing,” Hanson said. “If it turns your crank, go with it.”

Lynda Rose of Atlantic Highlands with her painted horseshoe crab shells.
Lynda Rose of Atlantic Highlands with her painted horseshoe crab shells.

Lynda Rose, an Atlantic Highlands resident who is president of the Eastern Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce, was selling horseshoe crab shells she cleans, sterilizes, paints and shellacs into artwork.
“I always thought they looked like soldiers with helmets,” said, Rose, 66. “Then, my imagination ran wild.”
Rose’s horseshoe crab art included a helmeted soldier, King Tut, Sitting Bull and a symbol of her surname, a rose.
The one-day show was in its third year in Rumson – the first year at Rumson Country Day School and the last two at Forrestdale School. The show had been held 25 or so years in Ocean County, but lost its sponsorship there, Luciani said.
“There hasn’t been a decoy show in this area for years,” Luciani said. “We want to bring it back.”
Chad B. Small, a collector of antique decoys and the then-headmaster of Rumson Country Day School, knew of the local interest and the show found its way here, Luciani said.