Photography by Ben Conant.
A note from the editors: The Autumn 2023 issue of Northern Woodlands magazine includes a profile of George Calef, whose carvings of waterfowl and other birds have won numerous regional and national awards. Writer and photographer Ben Conant visited Calef at his Barrington, New Hampshire, studio and took many more photos than could fit in the pages of the print magazine. Here are some of those additional images.
George Calef and a prize-winning northern shoveler duck decoy. As Conant notes in the article, competitions for waterfowl decoys include buoyancy tests; judges place the decoys in a water tank and scrutinize, “the slightest imperfections such as a dip of the beak or a wobble in the wake.”
A more detailed look at the northern shoveler decoy. Note the fine detail on the beak.
This view, showing the back of a passenger pigeon carving, demonstrates Calef’s fine detailing of feather patterns. As passenger pigeons have been extinct since 1914, Calef relied on illustrations for this carving.
Calef works on a carving of a northern cardinal out of tupelo wood. This southern tree species has a consistent texture that’s well-suited to fine detail carving.
Calef’s studio companion, Cookie the Dog.