Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Katie Burke: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Thanks for joining us. Today, I have the honor of being in Uncle Pete's shop at his house, Mr. Pete Peterson at Decoy Carver, and we are actually getting to sit in his shop and look at his work, and it's pretty great. I haven't got to do this before. I have interviewed carvers. A few. And we've always been over the phone or at a show or somewhere, but never actually in your space, in your element. So this is kind of special. I'm glad I get to do this. So welcome to the show. Thanks for letting me come out here.
Pete Peterson: Well, you're welcome. Yeah. Welcome to Pete Town.
Katie Burke: So let's just start with kind of give me a background of how you got into the outdoors and hunting and just kind of give me a background of how it all began. You can go back as far as you like.
Pete Peterson: Well, I was a young man. I grew up in what was country then. It's the suburbs taking over now. But it was country and right on the water. That's all of the things country boys did. Hunting, fishing were certainly one of them. That's what I did. Just never stopped.
Katie Burke: Yeah, did your dad hunt or anything? No. So you did it on your own with friends and that sort of thing?
Pete Peterson: Yeah, a lot of it was just mostly on my own. Okay. All the other boys wanted to play baseball. I'd rather go fishing.
Katie Burke: So what, I mean, if nobody was, if your dad wasn't hunting or fishing and your friends weren't, like, what made you think to pick up a pole and go?
Pete Peterson: It was the enemy, I guess. Yeah. No Viking blood to go fishing.
Katie Burke: How old were you when you shot your first duck?
Pete Peterson: Thirteen, fourteen. I started carving decoys when I was 12.
Katie Burke: And then what inspired you to carve a decoy? What was that spark that made you want to go do it?
Pete Peterson: Because I needed a decoy to go hunting.
Katie Burke: Yeah, so where did you see your first decoy, I guess that is?
Pete Peterson: Well, the decoy was washing up on the beach. Okay. And they were there and I could see what they were and that's how they were used. It was simple enough thing to make one. They were pretty crude. Just drop out a body and make a head. Yeah. Paint her up and put her overboard.
Katie Burke: What did your parents think when you started, like, chopping out decoys? They were just like, that's silly kid.
Pete Peterson: I wasn't doing anything. I was chopping up all kinds of other stuff, too. Chopping firewood, chopping decoys.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So were you always, um, did you always like to do things with your hands? Like, were you always just kind of, that's just tactile in that way?
Pete Peterson: Work with hands, my hands and wood. Okay. I do all kinds of carpentry stuff too.
Katie Burke: Yeah.
Pete Peterson: I just love working with wood and my hands.
Katie Burke: Yeah, so it's just something natural that came to you just to work with your hands.
Pete Peterson: I guess I was told I had a great uncle that was a craftsman, a carpenter.
Katie Burke: Okay.
Pete Peterson: I don't know whether whatever was coming down. No, no, no. Just one of those things I just always loved to do.
Katie Burke: Yeah, that makes sense. It's hard to explain what it is that makes us like something like that. I mean, I painted from a young age and I couldn't tell you why I painted. I just liked doing it. Then did you realize you were like, not bad at it, that you were actually kind of decent at working with your hands pretty early? Did you kind of feel apt to do things? Like, if you wanted to make it, you could make it?
Pete Peterson: Yeah, that's what I did. Yeah. Just like the shop, needed a shop and had no money. I built this out of wood from the beach. Yeah, you saw a need and you just… I needed another building, I put them up. Find a building to tear down for the lumber, put up another one here.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So how often do you use, you were saying earlier when we were talking about like you recycled wood from like the beach and other houses, did you mostly recycle wood for that sort of thing? Or did you kind of do a hodgepodge, like you did a little bit of bulk lumber?
Pete Peterson: For decoys or?
Katie Burke: Both, yeah, either, yeah. I'm just curious.
Pete Peterson: Well, I started out with whatever wood from the beach that was big enough. Okay. And then I started learning wood a lot better, a lot better. This is part of the evolution in the trade. And once I found juniper, white cedar, I was in love. Yeah. I said, no more of this beech wood and junk of nothing but juniper.
Katie Burke: Okay.
Katie Burke: And is it just the way, like, the tools move through it?
Pete Peterson: Just the way… It's just made to be worked. Just made to be worked into all sorts of things.
Katie Burke: Yeah, and what, if you're using beech wood, what problems does beech wood give you while you're working with it?
Pete Peterson: Like… It was junk wood to begin with. Yeah, right. I don't know, nails and… Okay, yeah.
Katie Burke: Well, I just think, the reason I say that is because like North Carolina birds are always, a lot of them are made of just
Pete Peterson: junk wood and do you think that was just out of necessity or were they that that's what they had or yeah that's one of the things they were made for what they had okay tools wood was paint was you know not many but you know like 100 years ago people were poor even the rich people were what we would call now destitute base. They were all hungry, and people say, oh, they had plenty of time. You know, they did not have time.
Katie Burke: No, they were busy.
Pete Peterson: They were trying to grow stuff enough to survival. Anyway, they just had to work with what they had.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I just think about that, you know, and there's carvers in areas where they use the found stuff and then you have the more detailed kind. I don't know why I'm thinking about North Carolina in that area, but like, you know, Dudley who made that super decorative piece and it's like wonder, I don't know what, how do you, how do you diverge so far from one style to the next?
Pete Peterson: That's in your signature. Some people got, you know, the relief, what you call it, detail, and some are just kind of sloppy, whatever. It's just a matter of style.
Katie Burke: So you're making your first decoys to hunt with, right, when you were young. And as you start getting better and making more decoys, I mean, I'm sure, how many are you making in the beginning? Like how many were you making a year to start? Just what you needed or?
Pete Peterson: Whatever I could find, whatever I could, don't know.
Katie Burke: Okay, yeah. So when did you start thinking about selling them?
Pete Peterson: It wasn't like an instant moment. Anyway, when I first moved here to the Eastern Shore, one of my neighbor's father was a dentist from the Western Shore. He gave me $10 for one. So anyway, I knew that they could be used for more than hunting.
Katie Burke: Okay. So from then, so when did you start going to shows and stuff?
Pete Peterson: In 72. I think that was the second year that they had the Easton show. It was nothing like it is now. Nothing. It was more of a circus. Okay. Worked with no nets. And now it's all, you know, Osho approved.
Katie Burke: It's very fashionable. Yeah.
Pete Peterson: Well, the yuppies have taken the show over now. But at that time, they were gunners. They used to call in all the shots.
Katie Burke: How many carvers would be at those early shows?
Pete Peterson: I couldn't even estimate, not a couple dozen maybe.
Katie Burke: Is that your first time to really meet other carvers and start talking to other carvers? I mean you're here, so that's a little different.
Pete Peterson: Well all my life, if there was a decor carver around, I went to see him. Most of them were older. matter of fact it was starting out all of them were older and I just just just meet and just kind of like just to expand every time I see somebody because they got a lot in common with something to talk about and exchange ideas and that's part of how you learn accumulate accumulate accumulate little tricks.
Katie Burke: So who were some of those first carvers you went to visit?
Pete Peterson: Corbin Reed, an old shanker taker that lived close to daddy at that time, was in the Sunday paper. There was like a magazine in the Sunday paper, and there was a little feature story on him. Anyway, daddy found out how to get a hold of the man and took me to a shop. I wasn't even old enough to drive, but just took me to a shop. Wow, wow, and it's just all how he did it. And just went to see one of the older cars, and every time I could get to see one, I went to see him.
Katie Burke: Yeah, and they were happy to have you come in, and they were welcoming to you?
Pete Peterson: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Katie Burke: Yeah, you didn't have to show that you were serious or anything? I guess they could tell, maybe?
Pete Peterson: I guess their radar picked up on it. Okay.
Katie Burke: Yeah, because you know that definitely, the more carvers I've talked to, that's such a common thread, this mentorship or being accepted and let into this club, I guess. I don't know if someone would call it a club, but this world by older carvers, more experienced carvers. Definitely a thread I've seen with every carver I've talked to. And do you feel that, I mean, if someone showed up in your shop today, would you sit here and listen with them like a new carver? How would that work for you? Is it still happening?
Pete Peterson: All I can do is show them how I do it. Because that's what the old folks did. And some people have classes. You know, there are some carving classes. Like Jamie Hand from Cape May, New Jersey. He has carving classes all the time. I don't have a class. I just have my way and I can show you how I do it. You want a copy? That's fine.
Katie Burke: Right. I mean, eventually, this is kind of, I don't know. Tell you as I'm thinking about this too hard, but like if you watch and you look at enough decoys and enough carvers, you might be copying to an extent, but like you said, your signature will develop. Like you're never gonna, I think if you keep working at it, eventually you will develop a signature. I think that would naturally come, right? You're your own person. You're a different person than someone else. You would have a different… Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know. There's not really a question there. That's just kind of what… I don't know if I think about it that way. And mimicking someone is a good way to start that process, I guess.
Pete Peterson: Well, monkey see, monkey do.
Katie Burke: Right. Okay. I guess, were you starting to take orders from shows? When did you start, when did you take orders and how long did that go on for you?
Pete Peterson: I don't have a timetable for it.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So you started carving in the 70s, well, when you were 12, right? That's what you said, 12.
Pete Peterson: Yeah. Back, I was in the 50s, about 56.
Katie Burke: When did you build this shop? 71.
Pete Peterson: 71. All right.
Katie Burke: How old were you when you built this shop?
Pete Peterson: 30, in my 30s, early 30s.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So how many decoys do you think have been in this shop?
Pete Peterson: Probably about 7,000.
Katie Burke: Yeah, that's a lot of decoys. A lot of fun. Yeah, exactly. So where is, do you think, are your decoys all across the country, you think? Where do you think all? Across the world. Across the world.
Pete Peterson: When I was at the East, in the Eastern Show one year, that was when Nixon was president. I'm thinking he, the relations with China, that, you know, the country of China, the mainland China, was just starting to thaw. And there was a diplomat from DC at the show and he bought some decoys to take to China because at that time they had no hotels, motels for foreign visitors. A foreign visitor stayed with like a counterpart in that country and it was a Chinese customer. The diplomat was explaining all this to him, that a visitor bring a gift that was a symbolic of his country or the area of his country. Something special from America or the Eastern Shore. The handmade things, not store-bought, but something from that region. And he took a pair of teal over there. That's when they were just starting to get along.
Katie Burke: Yeah, that's cool. We talk about that on the show a lot. I've talked about it with other people, but decoy carving is such an American history. It's not really done in this way. And I grew up in Mississippi where we've kind of devoid of that kind of history, really. Decoys, I guess, weren't needed as they were on the Eastern Shore, but it is such an American thing. And then you're living in this place where it goes back for, I mean, how long have they had decoys in the Eastern Shore? I can't even, like, tell you a good number. Oh, yeah. And what's that like for you to be a part of that? Do you think about being a part of that history and passing that down?
Pete Peterson: Well, in a way, I am.
Katie Burke: Yeah, you are.
Pete Peterson: And what the old folks taught me, it's my job to teach the young folks what they taught me. Right. That's an American way of, that's what the Western Civilization came from. Yeah. You know, fathers teaching their sons, and over generations go father and father.
Katie Burke: Yeah, this is such a tradition that is, I was trying to explain that to someone who doesn't, isn't just kind of learning all this stuff this weekend at Easton, and I was like, Yeah, you know, people worry about this to keep going. But, you know, it is such a handed down tradition as like you you have to know about it. to then want to do it, right? And it's something that I think, like, Ducks Limit, of course, and other people are trying to get more stuff awareness to get those 12-year-old boys to see a decoy and want to make their own, and girls. And yeah, it's such a handed-down tradition, so we need to kind of keep it going so we keep that history of it. So there's not that many people that hunt over wooden decoys anymore, but for the most part, I'm guessing all your customers are buying it for decorative purposes. They're going in bookcases. Yeah. Yeah. But still, that's great. So how do you feel, this is a funny question and you're going to be really humbled by it. You're not going to like it. But how do you feel about the fact that your stuff is going to be collectible and that you're going to, like we were at the auction yesterday, and that your stuff is going to eventually be that way. Can you think about your stuff in that way? Oh, yeah.
Pete Peterson: Yeah.
Katie Burke: Yeah.
Pete Peterson: I'm proud to make something that is collectible.
Katie Burke: Yeah. I didn't know if you could, you know, sometimes with modern carvers, they have a hard time thinking about themselves as something that's going to, you know, appreciate and be something that people trade in 50 years. Does that seem odd to you at all?
Pete Peterson: No. Not because I appreciate what the generations ahead of me did. Right. The workmanship. I'm just glad to be able to do it myself.
Katie Burke: Okay. I want to hear some stories. So tell me, is there any like commission that you did that, I don't know, was more difficult or you didn't know what you were going to start with or maybe ended up somewhere you didn't think it was going to go? Or any decoy, like you started out one way and you thought this decoy was going to be something, but it turned another way or anything of that. And how do you deal with that?
Katie Burke: Full speed ahead.
Katie Burke: Okay, so give me give me an example. Can you think of a certain one?
Pete Peterson: No, like these are sawed out of a piece of wood from a pattern. Okay. This sounds corny, but when I want to take a vacation from carving decoys like this. Yeah. I get a piece of a log. A log. Yeah. And just start splitting it with nothing but a hatchet. Okay. And it's subconscious. Carves a duck. You know, I just start chopping. I start chopping out of a out of a log. And the next thing I see, this is gonna be a pintail. This is gonna be a broadbill. Whatever it is, I just, my hands, I just start talking and just happy and go along and subconscious will tell me what that duck's gonna be.
Katie Burke: That's interesting. So you, and I wonder how much of that is like muscle memory or how much of that is just like the artistic part of you just kind of take it over your body in a way. Because, I mean, you've done so many. Don't know. Yeah, there's no way. Just having a good time. Yeah. Have you ever, like, been in the middle of making one and had a vision for another one and had to be, like, put that one aside and… Sort of.
Pete Peterson: You see all those half-finished birds? Yes. That's why I've been distracted. Yeah. And they just kind of go working on what's foremost in my mind.
Katie Burke: Yeah, and is that, I guess since you don't do commissions anymore, that's kind of the joy of what you have now is you can kind of let your creative process just do what it wants to do, right? Yeah, you can just let it go. Have you enjoyed that part? Oh yeah, my golly. Yeah, not having to think about making a rig of decoys.
Pete Peterson: No, I think about, I thought a time or two about doing it for a living. And I was happily married when I thought about it the first time. My wife was, she didn't hesitate. You are not. And I'm glad that I listened to her. Yeah. Because now there's no economic pressure on me to crank them out.
Katie Burke: Right. Okay, so I have very little like experience with this, but I can think like, the first thing I did, I went to art school to like, I guess, be an artist. And like within a year, I was like, this isn't for me. I don't, being told what to do sucked. I didn't like it. I didn't want people to tell me what to draw or what to paint. And yeah, I hated it. So I'm guessing it's similar for you that like when you get to do what you want to do, like if it would have been an economic process for you, maybe that would have taken the fun out of it.
Pete Peterson: Yeah, it'll just become a job. Yeah. And then, you know, all jobs get tiresome.
Katie Burke: Yeah, exactly. That's why they call it work and not play. Yeah. If it's a job, it's not your hobby in a way. I know people say you should make your hobby your job. And I think there is some people who can do that. I just never felt that I was that person. Me either. Yeah. I just never felt like I could do it. I would just, yeah, I don't know. I like to do what I want to do. Maybe it's because I'm hard-headed. I don't know. Are you hard-headed? I'm a square head. Yeah, I get that. Talk to me a little bit about your paint process because you have a very unique paint process to me. It's got this, this is a podcast, nobody can see it, but I don't know how to describe your paint, but it's got this softness to it.
Pete Peterson: Well, that is wet-on-wet paint.
Katie Burke: Are you painting with oils? Oh, absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. I thought so, I can kind of tell.
Pete Peterson: And I learned it by accident. I had to paint with all my colors open. Right. And I had a brush for every color. And I was out here, been painting all day, and dipped the brush I had in my hand, went in the wrong can of paint, and a big swipe, the wrong color. Okay. And I said, what are you going to do now with damage control? And started Feathering it out. Simple. That's so simple. There's no paint by line, or paint by number, or when you're painting, you don't want to get the ceiling paint on the walls. Forget that. Forget that, and that is a hard obstacle to overcome. I was just waiting for my daddy to punch me in the jaw. You don't strike a water line. You can with wet on wet. So no boundary. You just kind of let one color overrun the other. You don't need blending brushes. Just take one color and just paint it right in the other until it's gone. That's where all the harsh boundaries, there are no harsh boundaries.
Katie Burke: That reminds me, because I remember when I was, I painted a lot and I had a really, really good teacher that let me come and hang out at her house. And I was just painting, I used to, I was one of those little girls who loved horses, so I painted a lot of horses. And I was in high school and I was painting this horse and I was like, it just kept getting muddier and muddier and I couldn't get the color I wanted. And she came up and she just took a paper towel and wiped it clean. And it was like, all that color that I had built was still there, but when she wiped it, it just did this thing that I was like, it just, I was like, blew my mind. I was like, you can just wipe it off and it'll still be like this more soft, feathered. It did, it blew my mind.
Pete Peterson: I'd say that's, there's no paint where this was one color. No, it's just sort of one where there's no boundary.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So how, this is kind of getting in the weeds because I just, I'm interested. How thin is your paint? So how thin is the paint on the decoy?
Pete Peterson: I mean like- What I do is basically work with Rust-Oleum with tube colors added. Okay. You know, the Rust-Oleums start with this kind of thin, all the store-bought paint now is too thin. Yeah. I want it thick. Yeah. Start with a half a quart of Rust-Oleum. And add these, whatever, these family size.
Katie Burke: Yeah, the big, the big tube. Well, what the hell, 150?
Katie Burke: I used to, I used that paint too.
Pete Peterson: Well, anyway, add one of these to a half a quart of Rust-Oleum. Okay. In whatever color, you know, kind of tint that I'm trying to work with. That's what I start with. I start by painting the wood one coat, one coat rough. Just slap it on there and that soaks in the wood. When that's dry, that is, and your pattern, rough pattern is there for you too, no sketching. It's there. And put the second coat on, it like puddles up on the top, it does not soak in. So it stays fluid a lot longer than one coat. So on the second coat, you've got time to blend colors together. And tint colors. You can put, I love to have a clamshell here with some tinting colors. And with the same brush, just catch a corner. And just put it right in there and you can just add cadmium barium orange. You know that color? Yeah, I know that color. You think that's on a duck?
Katie Burke: No, but it is.
Pete Peterson: I learned that trick from Cigar Daisy. If you want that golden pancake brown, that golden tan, carry him on. Anyway, Cigar, he would mislead people at times. But I watched him, watched him right there, and I was paying close attention, so he was not misleading. And I got home, and I got some of that. It's a hard color to find. And I asked Cigar about mixing colors. And you know what his advice was? Try them all. Shotgun. Try them all. And that has been so handy because you know for yourself, sometimes you get surprised.
Katie Burke: That's true, yeah.
Pete Peterson: It's not like 2 and 2 make 4. 2 and 2 make 22. Yeah. So you just never know. Anyway, until you try them.
Katie Burke: Yeah, yeah. You know, my art teacher, she would never let me use black. She would say, no, you can't use the black paint. You make black paint. I was like, and she refused to let me use black. She, like, she would buy us those sets for us when we first started oils, and she'd take the black and throw it away. And she wouldn't let us do it. She was like, no, you have to learn to make black. Because your black's not just black, it could be purple, it could be blue, it could be green.
Pete Peterson: I learned this trick from Charlie Joyner. To make gray, there's no black.
Katie Burke: Yep, no black.
Pete Peterson: Raw umber. Yep. A little bit of raw umber, a little more, a little more, a little more, however gray you want it, just keep adding raw umber. Wow. And to add black to white, it gets a violet shade, purple, bluish, bluish purple shade. Especially you get under incandescent lights, you know, that was the color of the lights, you know, like that, but anyway. Because I've had some gray down, looked gray in the shop, and I carried it to the high school in Easton. They got what, incandescent lights? And I took them outside to make sure that I was seeing right.
Katie Burke: Right.
Pete Peterson: Now it's gray. So I know, yeah.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Okay, so let me go back, because when you're talking about putting, because this I don't know very well, when you're putting that first coat on the wood, right? Because I always paint on canvas, so that's, I don't know. But how long does that take to dry? Because oil tends to be slow, but does the Rust-Oleum make it faster?
Pete Peterson: Rust-Oleum has enough dryer in it of its own that I want to slow that down, and the tube colors will slow it down for you because they need it.
Katie Burke: They take forever. Yeah.
Pete Peterson: Well, so the dryer is in the paint. Okay. That's a funny way to look at it, but… Yeah, yeah. That makes sense to me. No, and add dryers to that too. I mean, and the paint is the dryer for the two colors.
Katie Burke: Okay. So, so how long does it take for that first one? Can you paint it and then go on and do the second coat or does it need to sit and you come back to it?
Pete Peterson: At least overnight.
Katie Burke: Okay.
Pete Peterson: That's what I assume. At least. Okay.
Katie Burke: And then that second coat obviously would take even longer, right?
Pete Peterson: Depends on some of the pigments take, you know.
Katie Burke: Right, like a white takes forever. Okay, let's say you're doing like a mallard hen, right? And it's got all that detail. So would you even come back and do like a third or a fourth on something to add that detail or how do you?
Pete Peterson: Yeah, what I do is instead of trying to paint each feather.
Katie Burke: Right, like Illinois River style. Yeah.
Pete Peterson: What I do is take a brush and turn like on edge and on the contrast of the backs of first coat is a dark brown. Okay. And then with a lighter shades and different shades of tan with a brush on edge and just paint. You just scratch in? No, it's dot. You just get in this dot, dot, dot, dot. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Okay. And it goes fast. It goes fast. Okay.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So then I guess, let's say, what about your wood duck here? What is, how long does, that's probably your most, one of your more detailed ones. It's right there. One of those wood ducks.
Pete Peterson: Oh, they're slow.
Katie Burke: They're slow. Yeah. Is that your slowest one? Is a wood duck or like one of maybe.
Pete Peterson: Oh, the Drake wood duck.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Slow. Yeah. I would think it's probably your most detailed bird that I see. How often do you make shorebirds? Do you make them as often as you make ducks or do you just kind of move around?
Pete Peterson: Every spring is a main time because when they're migrating through here right back here is one of those migration key points for shorebirds. and they're every kind left come through here in huge numbers. And they're not all on the same schedule. Like I used to keep notes of it when this one comes, just like the swallows coming back to Capistrano, this is when the first one of these come and when they leave. Because they don't stay, some of them don't stay long at all. And anyway, they're just swarms of them, just clouds of them at times. And you see the cloud and here and they, oh, they're fascinating. Anyway, that's what, that's when I'm really inspired.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So yeah. Do you get inspired by what you see, like what's in the area and.
Pete Peterson: Oh yeah. What's, what's, what's going on right in front of you.
Katie Burke: Yeah. You know, I've never, that's something. So, I mean, I've seen shorn birds, obviously, because I've been to the beach and stuff, but that's just something we don't have where I grew up. And I've always kind of had a fascination for the carvings because it's kind of foreign to me. But yeah, I'd love to see that. That'd be awesome to see all those birds coming through. So they still come through in those big numbers, like lots of them. Yeah. Lots of them. You just sit out there and watch them. We sure do. Yeah. So, you know, do you still hunt anymore? Have you stopped hunting? No. Do you just like to go out and watch, though? I mean, you know, Cameron one time told me, like, it was one of the things that he likes that sparked his thing, and it's the thing I love about his paintings, you know, he has the best paintings and no one knows about them, but he captures those quiet moments when you're out there and the birds, he doesn't put birds in it, which is kind of nice, but I can kind of almost picture the birds in there. When you see those birds and they're just working and it's poor, everyone's shooting at them. And it's just like this, I don't even know how to explain, it's magic. It's this magic moment. And I always want people that's never hunted before to just go see it. I mean, even if you don't shoot, just to be in that, it's inspiring. And there's not much, anything else like it. No, no. So you're still going and looking at that stuff and being a part of that?
Pete Peterson: Yeah, I'm just not pulling the trigger anymore.
Katie Burke: Yeah, yeah. You don't need to always pull the trigger. My dad doesn't pull the trigger. He takes a lot of people to go pull the trigger, but he doesn't pull the trigger that often anymore. And he likes to take it now. He takes all his grandkids. So did your kids hunt or carve or did they show any interest in this? No, they never did. How about your grandkids? What do they think about all your… Too early to tell. Too early to tell. Yeah. Do you let them play with any of them at all? Don't really know. You don't really know? No. All right. So let's see. Let's go back to, so you change your style of decoy pretty, like I noticed like you have the little snaky heads and you kind of change. What, what makes you, Is it just like why you're chopping it out? You just decide to go in that direction, like that style? Or what makes you think about what direction you're gonna go with a decoy?
Pete Peterson: Just what I had for breakfast that day.
Katie Burke: So do you go through phases though? Like do you say, I'm gonna do like, I like doing, I'm doing this for a little while and then it just kind of switches over?
Pete Peterson: That's when I go on vacation with just a hatchet and a log and start chopping and I'll make a dozen whatever comes out of that log and there'll be one out of that dozen has something special about it. Well I'll make a pattern off of that one and that's what I'll make till the next day I go on vacation.
Katie Burke: Yeah, so how do you ever, so let's say you make that pattern and you do those until you're ready to, yeah, like figure something else. Do you ever go back to an old pattern or do you? Sure do. Okay. Sure do. So how often would you go back to a pattern? Like, do you even know? Or do you just get like an itching to go back to a pattern and do it again?
Pete Peterson: Oh, I've got, you know what a fish box is? You know, when they pack 50 pounds of fish. I've got three of those boxes full of old patterns. I don't throw any of them away. Okay. So I can go back to one of my earliest patterns and make a 1971 dipper. Okay. You know, I can do that.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Does it come out differently over the years from when you did it the first time? Oh, yeah. Do you like it better the first time you did it or the last time you did it?
Pete Peterson: Whatever I had for breakfast.
Katie Burke: That's going to be your go-to answer. All right. This is interesting, because obviously you're not the same carver you were when you first made the pattern, and now you evolve without help, without trying.
Pete Peterson: Oh, boy. I think about the things I would have changed if I was doing this 30, like when I started 30, 40 years ago, this is what I would have changed. Right. But I didn't do it. But anyway.
Katie Burke: Do you ever see a decoy at someone's house and think, like, oh, I wish I'd done that differently? Like, do you, or do you like how you did it for that time in your life? None of them out there, you're just like, oh, why is that still on your shelf?
Pete Peterson: No, no, I don't know. I never really worried about it much.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I was just wondering, because like, I think, who is it that said that? I think it's, I think when I was talking to Jerry, he said like, yeah, there's some of them out there he wishes he could, like, have them, throw them in the fire. But no, I don't think anyone would do that.
Pete Peterson: I tell people, the young boys that want to start carving, I tell them, the first one's going in the stove.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Oh, no, no, no.
Pete Peterson: Your first one's going in the stove, so it won't embarrass you later.
Katie Burke: How long do you think it takes when you got these new guys to kind of finally get one that's… How long do you think that'll take somebody?
Pete Peterson: No estimate.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I mean they say, what is it they say, like 10,000 hours you become a pro or something like that? Something crazy.
Pete Peterson: Some people, the old carpenter I used to work with, he said there's three categories of talent. Some people as a God, as a blessed or talented. And then the second class, you can learn it. You know, you're not born with it, but you can learn it. Right. And then there's the third class.
Katie Burke: Just never gonna come. Just ain't got it. Ain't got it.
Pete Peterson: And Len Ward used to tell young carvers that wanted to learn how to carve. Boy saw out ten heads and he'd carve each one and as you as you finish put number one and if ten is no better than number one drop it.
Katie Burke: Did you know them at all? Did you get to meet the wards?
Pete Peterson: I sure did.
Katie Burke: What was that like?
Pete Peterson: It was like meeting the Pope.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Did they offer knowledge and show you? What were they like to a young carver?
Pete Peterson: I asked him for criticism. I said, what do I need to do? Looks good, boy. Looks good. Tell me what I'm doing wrong. Oh, looks good. So I learned by copying them. Yeah. Not by what they say, because, oh, I look good.
Katie Burke: I never give you good feedback. What were they? How? I mean, I don't know. You know, I don't know a lot. I haven't heard that many stories of them. Were they really different from each other? Did they like?
Pete Peterson: Well, not that I knew.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Obviously they were. But yeah, like from a Carver perspective.
Pete Peterson: Well, two brothers, even how different some people can be, brothers can be, are similar. They were pretty close, what I would say, personality-wise. They had differences, but there was no trouble to tell one from the other. But you could tell they were brothers.
Katie Burke: How often were, I guess they were carving their own stuff and collaborating, but what, I don't know, that's an interesting thought of collaborating on decoys. I mean, you've done, you've said in there, like you had that one where you did the body and someone did the head. What's that like to work with another carver to make the one object? How does that differ? I've never asked anyone that question actually.
Pete Peterson: For me, I make it, I'll do it all myself.
Katie Burke: Yeah.
Pete Peterson: And that's it. So I really can't say they collaborate. I really can't say.
Katie Burke: Yeah, I guess if you have a head from somebody else, though, you can then imagine to put the body for it.
Pete Peterson: I told you that Harry hid in the house with a cork. I made the body and Kenny Marshall made the head. We were working together down there. Anyway, that was just one of those happens, happens, happens sort of things.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Have you made many cork decoys? That's the only one I've seen of yours. Did you make many?
Pete Peterson: Couple dozen, couple dozen out of the life of lifejacket cork.
Katie Burke: Was it easy for you to work with cork straight away or like did it? It's work with what you got. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pete Peterson: I guess it was just, it was different.
Katie Burke: Yeah. So you wouldn't use a hatch, you would just kind of slowly take it down, right?
Pete Peterson: No, just basically use a hand saw. Just shave it off to get a rough shape and a rasp.
Katie Burke: Okay. Yeah, I just never even thought about it. How old were you when you met the Wards? Was that one of your, did your dad take you to the Wards?
Pete Peterson: It was in the late 70s. I would have been in my early 30s.
Katie Burke: Okay. And then, um, who else were you, you said a few, but like, I guess they were still making decoys at that point. Um, how else were you like getting to, we talked a little bit about it, that you were surprised by getting to see like famous carvers and stuff like that, that you got to,
Pete Peterson: Was there anyone else that you got to really… Well, I spent an evening with Charlie Joyner, the head of the bay. Yeah. And he's the one that taught me, and he learned it from Lem Ward about mixing gray paint.
Katie Burke: Okay. It's a heck of a hand-me-down right there.
Pete Peterson: I say this is a whole lot of hand-me-downs. I think this is somewhat in question, that Lem Ward learned that trick from Lynn Bogue Hunt. Oh, wow. Yeah. So anyway, there's a whole lot of hand-me-down in the decoy. Yeah. A tradition.
Katie Burke: Yeah. Limbo Kunt. He, uh, yeah, he, he was a hell of a painter. And yeah, he can make some paint perfectly. Um, that's incredible. So I wonder, I was thinking yesterday when that, uh, we were at the auction yesterday and did you see that, um, Pentel went for $65,000, that Ward Pentel. I wonder what they think about that. Their, that Pentel going for $65,000. I think about that all the time when these decoys go for these crazy amounts of money, and I think, you know, what these guys would think about now, seeing that.
Pete Peterson: Shaking their head.
Katie Burke: Yeah. I mean, it's Amazing Bird, but yeah, it's just, it's hard to think about something like that, because they didn't think about, like you even, you don't even like for me to call you a master carver or an artist, but it's hard to, it's hard not to say that about something that's being sold for $65,000. You know, like, it's hard to make that jump, right? Like, to justify. And I think the people to get wrapped their head around it, they have to classify it that way, you know?
Pete Peterson: I call it Alice in Wonderland.
Katie Burke: Yeah, so explain that to me. What does that mean?
Katie Burke: How about that? Okay.
Pete Peterson: Like anything collectible, got a quarter that's got a D or S on it, 1922 or something, it's worth a half million dollars. Right.
Katie Burke: Just rarity, I guess. It's not just rarity.
Pete Peterson: It's Alice in Wonderland. Doesn't make a bit of sense.
Katie Burke: Well, that's what it is.
Katie Burke: I guess we need to stop trying to wrap our head around it and just accept it. Maybe.
Katie Burke: I don't know. I just say, well, how about that?
Pete Peterson: I don't know. I can't really comprehend it.
Katie Burke: Yeah. All right. Okay. I've taken up a lot of your time. Is there anything that you want to say to our audience? You know, we're not necessarily who's listening to this or not necessarily know about carvers or know about decoys. I mean, I'm trying, that's what I'm trying to do. Um, they might be just be duck hunters in Arkansas or Illinois or all the way over in Washington, but they're all American. Yes, so is there anything you'd like them to know about carving in the Eastern Shore that we hadn't talked about?
Pete Peterson: They're all different. Every area of the country had different notions and different physical conditions, weather, water. They were just made to survive there.
Katie Burke: And I guess what would be, if you had some advice for somebody that wants to pick this up, what would be your two cents?
Pete Peterson: Read Joel Barber's book, Wildfowl Decoys, first published in 1936, 37. Start there. Okay. It's not the introduction, I think it's chapter one. It talks about what a decoy is. Okay. And there's one line in it I got a copy of the book when I was about 14, 15, don't know if Christmas present, and there's a line in there, of all the birds susceptible to the lure of a decoy, I am the most gullible of all.
Katie Burke: That's great. That's powerful. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for doing this with me. This was fun. I'm glad I got to do it. Pete Slauson, Jr.: : Well, if I can come back again. Nicole Krasinski, PhD.: : Oh, I will. All right. Thank you, Pete, for coming on the show. Thanks, Chris Isaac, our producer, and thanks to you, our listener, for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.