NEA Sponsored Project 

The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury University, has been awarded a grant  by the National Endowment for the Arts to support the project “Carving Out Future Decoy Makers.” Sixteen professional carvers from throughout the United States are to teach six students in each of their communities how to carve a working decoy.

This project intends to help preserve, promote, and present the decoy carving traditions of the United States. The NEA provides the funding to pay the professional carver’s instructor fee and a stipend for the student’s materials. The students have the unique opportunity to learn how to craft a functional hunting decoy from a professional carver at no cost. It is hoped that this experience stimulates the 66 students to continue the tradition of decoy making, an original American art form. 

Each fall the Ward Museum holds the Chesapeake Wildfowl Expo on the grounds of the museum next to Schumaker Pond. Expo is an opportunity for carvers and collectors to meet with each other, exhibit their decoys in a public forum and compete for ribbons and prizes. The decoys completed in this project will be entered into the Chesapeake Challenge held on October 10th. Their work will be floated and judged as functional working decoys along side the work of other regional carvers. Those carving shorebird decoys will have their work judged next to the pond. The instructors will also participate in discussions regarding their efforts to pass their skills and knowledge to their students and their community.

This is the fifth year of the Carving Out Future Decoy Makers project.  The first two years were limited to the Mid-Atlantic region, but the third and fourth years represent the four major migration flyways across the United States.  Fourth year professional carver participants include:

View the Carving Out Future Decoy Makers flash presentation to learn more about the 2009 project.