The Wood Carver
Carvers tend to be creative, partly because the act of carving itself is often at the mercy of the medium. The wood may not let you make that curve just the way you’d like or a slip of the chisel and your bluegill becomes a bottom feeder. But beyond the fickleness of the wood, there’s the fun of being able to create fanciful and fantastic creatures. While Jerry’s decoys are all usable, he, like many other carvers, creates folk art decoys as well as working fish decoys. The Great Lakes Fish Decoy competition defines folk art decoys as “generic fish decoys which do not represent any particular species in form, decoration or markings. Carvers will use their own imagination as to the form, coloration, markings or paint patterns.”
A good example of one of Jerry’s folk art lures came to be because of his grand daughter.
“My youngest grand daughter loves my carving,” he said. “So I asked her what color decoy she’d like me to make for her. What should I have expected? Of course she said pink.”
And a pink decoy she got, a chubby pink fish with big red lips and a pink poof on top it its head.
Jerry is adamant that his carving remain fun. He doesn’t take orders, although there are plenty of people who’d like him to. He does show and sell at various events like the recent Rendezvous at Pioneer Days in Westfield, Wisconsin and the NFLCC Antique Tackle show in Wisconsin Dells. He’ll also be at the Gun and Sporting Show at the Howard Johnson’s in Wisconsin Dells on October 26.
A highlight of Jerry’s decoy carving is meeting and getting to know other carvers. He holds many in high regard and expresses a feeling of honor to be among them at shows and contests. It’s a tradition among carvers to trade their work and Jerry is thrilled whenever a master carver is interested in trading for one of his decoys.
“It makes me feel very, very happy,” he said, “that they’d want to trade for one of my pieces. It’s a natural high; the ultimate compliment when another carver wants to trade.”
Jerry says his carving is “good for me both mentally and spiritually.” That’s easy to understand when you see his work. You’re drawn in to its form and color. You follow the lines with your eye and trace the grain of the wood with your finger. Each carved decoy sits suspended between art and history, fable and nature. Each one is a memory of the plunk of a lure into a crystal lake or the smell of the pines across a frozen expanse of icy water. From his hands to yours, passes the love of the outdoors and a figure laden with that magical connection between man and fish throughout history.
Captions:
Jerry Bynum of Packwaukee carves his spear fishing decoys in an expansive workroom in the lower level of his home. Many of his tools are also made specifically for his carving.
Besides spear fishing decoys, Jerry Bynum of Packwaukee makes fanciful fish mobiles using the upside down tops of old Christmas trees and numerous hand carved fish that he paints in bright colors.
Jerry Bynum of Packwaukee has earned numerous ribbons for his hand carved spear fishing decoys.
Besides working decoys, Jerry also carves folk art decoys. Here is one of his creations, also weighted to be a usable decoy. He was inspired by some big lips on a monkey and just had to carve a fish with those same big lips.
