Lloyd Johnson was born in 1910 and spent his childhood in Bay Head, NJ gunning in a sneak box with his father along Barnegat Bay. Johnson honed his carving skills early on by repairing his father’s birds. Johnson’s later decorative work was impressive in its detail because of his skill with knife and brush. To achieve the highest level of intricacy in the feathers, Johnson occasionally even used a brush with only three bristles. As well as being a well-known carver, Johnson was also an avid decoy collector. While he produced less than 1,000 birds in his New Jersey shop, he had collected twice that by his death in 1965.