March 18, 2007

• day at the decoy show

              

     On Friday, as planned, I went to the decoy show at a local hotel. My main goal was to see the craft/art portion, but it was just being set up for the weekend. I recognised the layout from having been there years ago. The vintage decoy part of the show was hopping, though and I'd never been to that section, which was presented in an unusual way. People use their hotel rooms as display spaces & spectators wander from room to room, stepping in whereever a door is open. All the hotel furnishings are used, plus some folks brought stands & bookcases too. So one would walk into a room & see beds, desks, Tv tops, dressers, etc. lined with not only decoys, but prints, magazines, antique outdoorsy equipment, fishing lures, old advertising signs.

      

      It was a combination of art & antique show with a sportsman theme. I tried my best to overlook any obvious hunting reference, which was mostly low key anyways.The small rooms didn't really accomodate the amount of traffic streaming through them, but everyone was polite about it. There were a couple dogs among the vendors, a friendly little poodle named Buffy, a cuddly elderly labrador & an excited springer spaniel. I found their presence a bonus.

     Many of the decoys were antique & it was intriguing to see the varied styles of the carvers. It was a weird juxtaposition seeing wooden birds from the 1890's next to a sleek plastic phone on a nightstand. Some of the decoys were much larger than life size, Godzilla ducks, I called them. Supposedly ducks can't distinguish size very well, but can see the huge decoys farther away. Most of the vendors were happy to answer questions & I learned a lot. Exploring this subculture was an experience and some of the decoys were definitely worth going out in a snowy afternoon.

  • 9:30 pm
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