Library of Congress Bicentennial Celebration Presentation - Page 12
The Judges
accepts Service Class trophy from club President, Bob Solari, of Concord.
"What do the judges look for?", has been the oldest question echoed throughout the artform for almost 40 years. With the passing of time, the answer gets more complex, for they are looking for a great deal more than were those Long Island sports of Bellport '23. "Decoys have changed", stated champion carver Bill Schultz Chairman of the 1974 International Decoy Contest at Davenport, Iowa, "The contemporary bird is quite unlike its forerunners in appearance and in use.... The 'Gunning Decoy' of yesterday is now more accurately titled 'Competition Grade Decoy' the standard we strive for is no longer a caricature - rather a portrait of the living bird.''
This authoritative analysis, laid out in the 1974 International brochure, was eagerly adopted by every contest committee in the nation. Here was an unassailable guiding principle of the artform to last a millennium. Of course there would be a misguided and disruptive minority of carvers who would suggest that strict adherence to the Living Bird Manifesto might lead to a kind of model building 'Wooden taxidermy" (a term to cause anxiety among the grand masters of that style), and a "cloned" artform, but art-by-committee requires rules that are simple and unequivocal. Committees innocent of art training find themselves ill prepared to argue art history.
continue to produce an annual Wildlife Art Festival.
The Living Bird is why there are two tanks at the Festival. The judges of the "Decorative Life Size Floating" decoys, will be examining every facet of realistic detail, and assessing the levels of skill and artistry, while the judges of the "Traditional Hunting Decoys" (a title that would enrage those old traditionalists of Bellport '23, who fancied painting with sticks, rags, and blowtorches), will be looking for more serviceable qualities. "Likeness to species" is as far as P.F.D.A. committees have chosen to force the issue of art, leaving the judges with more time to consider the important aspects of seaworthiness and craftsmanship. It is not surprising that Traditional Hunting Decoys have remained the most popular event, with the highest number of entries. It has remained so popular that those sports of the rod and gun have looked in to see how decoy contests might serve their ends. In 1989, California Ducks Unlimited sponsored a "Carver of the Year' contest, as an additional Festival event, with a purchase award for the best decoy of a selected species. Later a "Junior Greenwing" carving contest was added for youngsters. In the meantime, another conservation group, the California Waterfowl Association, opened its own series of decoy contests to be held at their annual convention in Sacramento. We have seen, however, that decoy contests are a sublime act of faith, to be attended with devotion and understanding. The California Waterfowl Association efforts evaporated even faster than those aborted New York Nationals of the 1940's. Eventually they became aware that a lively and popular decoy contest had been going on right over their heads for 15 years. So in 1997 they agreed to annually sponsor the P.F.D.A.'s Traditional Hunting Decoys contest with a purchase award of $650.00.
Except for one water tank, a table sparsely dotted with "Field or Stick-up Decoys" (stake out decoys of waterfowl, doves, turkeys, crows) and a table (on which the entries diminish yearly), devoted to the abstract, "interpretive", impressionist, and to "found" art, primitive art, and art-of-the-boutique, the-rest of the show is a celebration of Realism and The Living Bird. Set off from the water tanks are the tables of Decorative Life Size and Miniature entries. On these, the living bird stands, swims, perches, flies, at every level of technical virtuosity and complexity: raptors-and-prey, bird families and groupings, flocks in flight, down to songbirds carefully arranged on hand-carved habitat - in miniature. As several of these main categories of entries are sub-divided into Novice, Intermediate, and Professional, it can be understood why teams of judges are always at work throughout most of the weekend Festival.