(jaunty music) - Welcome to "The Volunteer Woodworker".

I'm your host Charles Brock.

Come with me as we drive the back roads, bringing you the story of America's finest woodworkers.

(jaunty music) (jaunty music continues) We are going to Memphis, Tennessee to meet Kerry Smith.

Kerry found himself in need of healing, so he returned to carving birds like duck decoys, eagles and owls, and he became an acclaimed master of the art.

Let's meet Kerry Smith.

(jaunty music) - [Narrator] "Volunteer Woodworker" is funded in part by.

Since 1970, Whiteside Machine Company has been producing industrial grade router bits in Claremont, North Carolina.

Whiteside makes carbide bits for edge forming, grooving and CNC application.

Learn more at whitesiderouterbits.com.

Real Milk Paint company makes VOC-free, non-toxic Milk Paint available in 56 colors.

Milk Paint creates a matte wood finish that can be distressed for an antique look.

Good Wood Nashville designs custom furniture and is a supplier of vintage hardwoods.

Keri Price with Keller Williams Realty has been assisting middle Tennessee home buyers and sellers since 2013.

Mayfield Hardwood Lumber.

Supplying Appalachian hardwoods worldwide.

Anna's Creative Lens.

- Well, I'm eye-to-eye with what soon will be a duck, like a decoy.

- Yes, it will.

Yeah.

- Kerry Smith.

- Hi Chuck.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

This is just marvelous.

And look at your great work back there.

I saw pictures of your work.

In fact, you sent me some pictures.

I opened them up and I said, this guy has got to be on the show.

- Well, thank you.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

- What artistry.

- Thank you so much.

It certainly is a calling, Chuck.

I think you and I talked about this earlier of how artists are just called into this wonderful craft that we have.

And it started for me back in 1982 is when it started.

I walked into a shop in Gatlinburg and there was a duck that was there.

Not unlike this guy.

This is a canvasback, it's a Drake.

And I was hooked.

I was just enamored with it and stayed there, I probably stayed in the shop for about an hour or so, just looking at the bird, holding it.

And I said to myself, there, I wanna learn how to do that.

And so I go home, I start getting knives and I start ordering books.

And that's how it all began.

And that's been 43 years ago, I think.

- So you were completely immersed all of a sudden- - Yes.

- In this art that became your passion.

- Right.

And it did.

So much so, as a matter of fact that it at one point where most people have dogs and cats as pets, well, we had an aviary in our backyard that was filled with ducks, with canvasbacks and other kind of ducks.

And I would go out there and that became almost a teacher for me.

It was being able to be close to those ducks.

I would get into a barrel down inside of that pen.

So the ducks were just eye level with me.

And I had a little pool that was there, a little pond.

And I would walk into the pen of course, and with my height, I would scare them and they would go to the back of the pen.

But then I would get down inside of a barrel and the ducks would just pile in and just be like, this far from me.

And I learned so much, just being able to watch them.

- So you started studying, you immersed yourself in everything ducks.

- Everything that I could get.

I was quacky so to speak.

You know, I just, I was just immersed in them and I don't know what, now I did grow up hunting ducks, but that kind of changed when they became my pets.

And in the aviary that we had, the ducks would swim around and I would learn.

Now, I didn't take a lot of pictures, but in my mind I would learn, you know, just their personalities.

And believe it or not, every duck has its own personality.

It will respond to different things.

And so that's a part of the creating.

I want to create that duck so that it has some of those things that I saw, some of the traits that I saw.

So the duck, the decoy is not just a decoy, it has personality.

- It does.

And few people know this, but all bird carving came from the tradition of carving decoys back in the middle 1800's.

That's where all of the art came from for carving and creating birds today.

- And so there was utility at that time.

- There was.

- Now are yours, as beautiful as they are, do they end up being decoys floating on a pond?

- Well, I do create some decoys that can be used hunting.

But the funny thing about that, I probably have created, I don't know, 30 to 35 pair of male and female mallards.

And I have yet to have anyone to put them in the water to hunt over them because they're just, they're beautiful works of art.

- [Chuck] So they end up on the coffee table or on the credenza or, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- That, that's great.

Now, when you were immersed in your studies, you got into a barrel?

- I did.

I would crawl down in it so that I could get eye level.

As a matter of fact, a pair of the canvasbacks that I had, they loved, loved earthworms.

And so I would walk out of my house and they would watch me and I would go dig earthworms.

And while the other ducks were getting away, the canvasbacks would come to the edge of the aviary and wait for me to get in the barrel to feed them earth.

They would eat earthworms from my fingers.

- Yeah.

- That's a great study.

- Kerry, you've been immersed in the water before and it was inspiring also.

Can you tell us about that?

- Certainly.

I'm an ordained minister and spent time in Montana as a new church planter along with my wife Karen, and have been a new church starting strategist as well.

I believe that all of us as artists have that gift of strategy.

In other words, we look at something and our mind automatically goes to how do we create that which we have just seen?

- And then you had some, life always has adversity, but then you had some real adversity.

And tell us about that and how duck carving his helped.

- Sure.

Well, yeah.

Life does give us our challenges and I have injured my back and have had 35 surgeries and procedures.

- Wow.

- And that has always hindered my ability.

I couldn't go as fast as I would like to.

I couldn't sit down for as long as I would like to.

But it has always been a constant, even there, there was a time that I was lying on my back in bed after a surgery and I had a duck in my hand and I was literally with a knife carving that duck while I was lying back.

And shavings were all over my chest and all over the bed.

But that he helped me to get through that adversity.

- That was your place to go?

- My place to go.

Yes.

Yeah.

- Isn't it interesting how the art that one pursues is also the therapy that they need?

- Exactly.

It really, really is.

This is not your work.

- Right, right.

But this is a study- - Darn it.

- It's a study bird.

It is, it is a way to, to be able to envision how to find that bird in the piece of wood.

- Yes.

- And make it look and almost feel real.

- I loved your analogy just then about finding that bird in that piece of wood, 'cause that's almost what it is.

It's finding that bird inside of that wood.

I know that that bird is in there.

I can almost see that bird in that piece of wood.

I really, in my mind's eye, I can see before I get there, what I want to do.

And I will begin removing the wood to get there.

This is a little hen, green wing teal.

And if I was carving a hen green wing teal, this would be so important to me.

First of all, it's important for the colors.

Now the anatomy as such, it is not as important from a taxidermy bird.

Taxidermy is an art form.

And sometimes that artist is mounting a bird with an idea that the anatomy is correct in his mind's eye.

- Well, you know, it, first impression is it's all brown, but it's not.

- Right.

- There are a lot of different shades of- - Yes, there are.

- That go into that.

- Yeah.

Yes.

And in the, there are carving competitions that happen around the United States, and there's the world championship that happens in Ocean City, Maryland in April.

And oftentimes a hen will beat all of those colorful Drakes to win best of show.

The reason is, in order to get one to look right, you've got to spend the time to paint those feathers.

- Wow.

- And that is no easy process.

And it, you know, that's, that's probably four or five different colors for each, for each feather.

Four or five different colors.

And also, if you notice the speculum, which is the colorful part to a duck, look at the green that's there.

- I didn't even know that was there.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- That green is just, you know, when I think of carving one, I want to be able to highlight that green that's there.

It's a green winged teal.

Well, I wanna make sure that that green is shown in the carving that I do.

(jaunty music) (jaunty music continues) (jaunty music continues) (jaunty music continues) - Well, Kerry, we've got this Tupelo Gum, which seems like it's the perfect material.

And what do we do next to get a bird out of this?

- We start with a pattern that will have two different views to it, the overview and then the side view.

And let's pretend for a second that this block was actually big enough to where we could draw those two.

But you can kind of tell here.

- Yeah.

It's a profile.

- Yeah, it's a profile of the duck.

And let's say that that wood was a little higher, so it could do be one piece.

- Right.

- The block of wood that that came out of was big enough for the head and the body.

A lot of times I will carve the head and the body separately.

And the purpose for that is that I can just sit and focus on the detail of that particular bird's face.

I believe that you find liveliness, life in wood when you can copy the face of your subject.

So we will do the side view and then we would do the top.

- Yep.

- And I would trace them off with a pencil and then get on the band saw and turn the band bandsaw on and cut out that block of wood.

- And so from there, there's a lot of work.

- There is a lot of work, and the tools are just many.

But I've often said that, that this is the most important tool that I have.

I bought it in 1984, I think.

A Cajun carver had made it.

And I've often said that if the shop, if my shop ever burned down, I'm going in to get this knife.

- Wow.

- Because it just, I mean, it is so sharp.

You can see how it just.

- Yeah.

And those are nice cuts too.

I mean there, the idea I guess is to be very clean when you cut.

- Yeah.

Well, it's, you, it's one of those things that you learn to do over time and you can see how it just.

- [Chuck] Yeah.

- And whereas a lot of people will use electric tools to get to the place of where they can start doing this, sanding and creating feathers.

It does not necessarily save time.

The problem is with those nice, electric tools, with those fancy bits in them, they end up taking too much wood off.

And lo and behold, you've got a really nice piece of firewood if you're not careful.

(Chuck laughing) - But Kerry, now we need to make it look alive.

And that's what gets me about your work.

It looks alive, it looks like it's fixing to fly away.

- Well, I wish I could say to you that this is something that is done overnight, but it's not.

It takes a lot of time to take that block of wood that you have carved and or that you've cut out.

It takes a lot of time to go from that cutout to a place where the bird looks alive and it has to be done simply and slowly.

And it, and I think it was Michelangelo that said that you cut once and look twice.

That applies here.

It's a matter of looking and understanding.

Once again, I spoke earlier about the aviary that I had.

Well, I need to know if I'm going to be carving, like this is a little bufflehead.

If I'm going to be carving that bufflehead, what is it that makes that bufflehead unique?

Sometimes I'll even do a clay model of that particular bird.

And because the reason I do clay, you can always put clay on a model and take clay off.

But if you use wood and you have questions about what you're doing, and you take that wood off, once again, you got a nice piece of firewood.

(Chuck chuckling) - Can you show us how you make it look so real?

- Mm-hmm.

- All right.

(jaunty music) (jaunty music continues) (jaunty music continues) (jaunty music continues) - So one of the painful lessons that I have learned in carving has been that whatever I draw, I end up carving.

Now that's good if I'm a perfect draw-er, but I'm not.

So if you were to look at an unfinished bird of mine, it's just about black from all of the drawing and erasing that I do to that actual bird.

So what I'm doing on this block of wood is I wanted to give you an idea of what it means to create a feather.

Just one simple feather.

And if you notice, I've got a little split in that feather right there.

I'm gonna put a little split in that feather right there.

And then on all birds, there are many different shapes of feathers, all different shapes with different functions, which is quite unique for all birds.

So what I've done is I've created several different kinds of feathers that are here.

And I'm gonna show you what I do when I create the feather.

I'm probably not gonna be able to get as close to all of the lines that I will pack in for the sake of time, but you'll have an idea.

So the tool I'm gonna use now is a micro motor tool.

And the micro motor tool does about 50,000 RPMs.

So when I use the micro motor tool, I will outline the feather with the bit that I'm using.

And if you notice the bit, it looks like a flame.

And so this therefore is called a flame bit.

So what I do, if this was a duck, I would come in and if your teeth start to hurt in the midst of this, because this is the same kind of tool a dentist uses.

All right, I'm gonna stop right there with that one.

And then what I do is I create almost like a stepping deal where it, where each feather kind of steps down a little lower than the previous feather.

And the way that I create that, because I lay it down on the side and I remove the wood that is next to the feather that I've just cut in.

And cutting in a feather is the term I use.

So then after I've cut those, those two or three feathers out, I will then begin to sand them.

And whereas I would usually go up to 800 for the sake of time, I'm just gonna do, I'm just gonna go to 240.

I think that will be okay.

And what I do is sand on the edge.

And you can imagine what this is like for the entire, doing the entire bird this way.

And you have to do the entire bird.

If you don't, it just doesn't look right.

Things that I do is I always draw a quill line down the middle of the feather.

Even if it's round, I may not necessarily, every feather on a duck by the way, has a quill.

Or most feathers on a duck have quills.

And I will use my burning tool and I will lay it on the side after I have done the work.

Sometimes I have created small, little rough edges and the the burning tool will help to smooth those down.

But it's ever so fine, you can barely see 'em.

Then after I get the quill burned in, I begin the process of burning actual lines and then draw, join me this time next week when I'll still be working on this one feather.

- I guess what you're trying to do is find the perfect bird in this block of wood.

And Kerry Smith, you do a great job of finding it.

- Gosh, thank you.

I really do appreciate that.

- I'm gonna be heading down the road to find a story of another great woodworker.

See you next time on "The Volunteer Woodworker".

(jaunty music) (jaunty music continues) - [Narrator] Volunteer Woodworker is funded in part by.

Since 1970, Whiteside Machine Company has been producing industrial grade router bits in Claremont, North Carolina.

Whiteside makes carbide bits for edge forming, grooving and CNC application.

Learn more at whitesiderouterbits.com.

Real Milk Paint Company makes VOC- free, non-toxic milk paint available in 56 colors.

Milk Paint creates a matte wood finish that can be distressed for an antique look.

Good Wood Nashville designs custom furniture and is a supplier of vintage hardwoods.

Keri Price with Keller Williams Realty has been assisting middle Tennessee home buyers and sellers since 2013.

Mayfield Hardwood Lumber.

Supplying Appalachian hardwoods worldwide.

Anna's Creative Lens.

Crafters of resin on wood decorative arts.

Visit CharlesBrockchairmaker.com for all you need to know about woodworking.

If you'd like to learn even more, free classes and a variety of subjects are available for streaming from CharlesBrockchairmaker.com.

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