The 9th annual Core Sound Decoy Festival will be held here Dec. 7 - 8,celebrating the art form. Decoy carvers will be on hand at the islandschool to demonstrate their skills and to show their wares.
The festival's organizers hope to raise funds to build a new structurefor the tiny Core Sound Waterfowl Museum, which is chockablock withdecoys, hunting guns and artwork about life close to the water.
According to Jul Hamilton, 71, the hunting of his boyhood was "to putfood on the table. We made decoys out of whatever we could find.
"You could buy a decoy for $1.25, but money was scarce," said CurtisSalter, 68, another experienced carver.
Hamilton said he gave little thought to the artistic value of thedecoys he made years ago. They were regarded as simply utilitarian, andwhen hunters stumbled in their boats and snapped off the wood heads andtails, Hamilton restored the decoys.
Many of the old decoys have moved into the realm of folk art, fetchingbig prices. And a stand of 200 hand-carved decoys today could cost about$10,000, with the owner never intending to set them anywhere near thewater.
Decoys usually are carved from stumps of tupelo gum trees, a byproductof swampland timber harvesting.
"You certainly have to be affluent to hunt over a school of hand-carveddecoys," said museum director Carl Huff. "Everybody wants to return tothe good old days, and this is a piece of it."
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