Unplugged: December
From December 2005
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Check Out the Smile on That Duck
After a 10-hour day of helping people improve their smiles, he heads home to spend long evenings —
after having dinner with his wife and tucking in his girls — working with dental tools, including a rotary hand-piece drill not unlike the one he wields all day in the office, to create the startlingly lifelike ducks.
From a block of wood to finished product can take several years, which Hinton says is part of the allure. He wants to come as close to perfection as possible. “I’ve been working on the last bird for a couple of years. I carve every quill of every feather.”
His in-process project is a wood duck that could take another six months to complete but might be done in time to enter in the main event in the wood-carving world — the World Championship of Carving held each April in Ocean City, Md. Hinton has already won two ribbons in competitions at the event, which is sponsored by the Ward Foundation of Wildfowl Art. “I’m a very competitive person,” he says. “I want to win that world championship.”
The ducks that Hinton creates from raw blocks of Tupelo wood have their genesis in the familiar decoys found in the backs of bouncing pickup trucks as duck hunters head to the rice fields north of Sacramento. But the carvings Hinton produces are way beyond anything a hunter ever splashes, hoping to fool a flight of ducks to come within shotgun range.
“They are really delicate, and nothing that you would use in the field as a decoy. (Each one is) totally an art piece.” In Hinton’s new home in the foothills, he has a display case for his work, but so far he is unwilling to part with any of his carvings.
Hinton does sell bronze-cast replicas of a mallard carving for which he won a ribbon in Maryland, offered through a website for $2,300. He began offering the bronze pieces for sale to admirers who wanted to purchase his carvings.
“I like them too much. I do it because I love to do it. I can’t really describe the feeling of creating something and being proud of it. I just enjoy looking at them after they’re done and knowing that ‘yeah, I did that.’ I do it out of a love for the hobby.”
Continued...
After a 10-hour day of helping people improve their smiles, he heads home to spend long evenings —
after having dinner with his wife and tucking in his girls — working with dental tools, including a rotary hand-piece drill not unlike the one he wields all day in the office, to create the startlingly lifelike ducks.
From a block of wood to finished product can take several years, which Hinton says is part of the allure. He wants to come as close to perfection as possible. “I’ve been working on the last bird for a couple of years. I carve every quill of every feather.”
His in-process project is a wood duck that could take another six months to complete but might be done in time to enter in the main event in the wood-carving world — the World Championship of Carving held each April in Ocean City, Md. Hinton has already won two ribbons in competitions at the event, which is sponsored by the Ward Foundation of Wildfowl Art. “I’m a very competitive person,” he says. “I want to win that world championship.”
The ducks that Hinton creates from raw blocks of Tupelo wood have their genesis in the familiar decoys found in the backs of bouncing pickup trucks as duck hunters head to the rice fields north of Sacramento. But the carvings Hinton produces are way beyond anything a hunter ever splashes, hoping to fool a flight of ducks to come within shotgun range.
“They are really delicate, and nothing that you would use in the field as a decoy. (Each one is) totally an art piece.” In Hinton’s new home in the foothills, he has a display case for his work, but so far he is unwilling to part with any of his carvings.
Hinton does sell bronze-cast replicas of a mallard carving for which he won a ribbon in Maryland, offered through a website for $2,300. He began offering the bronze pieces for sale to admirers who wanted to purchase his carvings.
“I like them too much. I do it because I love to do it. I can’t really describe the feeling of creating something and being proud of it. I just enjoy looking at them after they’re done and knowing that ‘yeah, I did that.’ I do it out of a love for the hobby.”
Continued...
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