A bit later, I caught up with President Bob and Laurie. We chatted a bit about the Palm Frond decoys.
"Palm fronds were made many, many years ago by the California hunters as a decoy," says Sutton, "and they actually floated them. They would make a head out of, oh, anything and just stick it on ... at that time, you didn't need a very good decoy -- they were basically just a lump in the water. The guys would paint them with barn paint, or whatever they had, and you could buy them for fifty cents each."
"One of the most famous of the Palm Frond Decoy makers was 'Pappy' Kidwell, from the San Francisco Bay area," Bob continued. "He claimed to have made more than 50,000 of them in his lifetime. I have some that he had done. I kinda got interested in it."
"How is it to carve? " I queried.
Laurie responded, "Once you get past the hard shell, it's like cork. I use power to carve it. Sanding is difficult, because you can take off way too much before you realize it."
"I've been very lucky with them," he went on, "I love them. I've made a lot of them. Roger Barkley, in San Francisco, he wrote a piece about mine and some others, and some people got interested," he said modestly. "Then I made one for the Ward's World Championship in Maryland, and entered it-and that sort of got some people's dander up. I've won two times with them, and you just don't DO that!" The Ward's people are mostly quite traditional Easterners.
Bob picked up a decoy. "This here Bufflehead was made by the Victor Payoran, the current World's Champion Carver.
"So he didn't see the rules, then?" I hazarded.
"There are no rules!" smiled Laurie, "There are no guidelines!"
Half of the work of making the Palm Frond carvings is finding suitable frond material. You have to learn to hunt palm fronds! What species do you use? Date Palm, Queen? The answer is that you use whatever species makes the biggest frond. Ignore the ones that have fallen off the tree. They need to be cut fresh, and as close to the tree as possible. Then you hang them in the shed for about 6 months.
"Once you take the shell off, you've got nothing but. . . like, balsa wood," Bob says. "And here's a secret: Sometimes, Bondo is the carver's best friend. It will stabilize the fibers and let you get a smooth finish without the fuzzing you would get if it wasn't sealed."
Sutton is the one who brought the Fronds to the California Open competition. After three more years of entries, the variety is impressive. This is a division that lets you have fun and be creative.
"Stringy," Bob added, "very soft-punky-like balsa. Gotta use a sharp tool. You can use power on it, but you have to be real careful. It'll catch on ya, and it's GONE. Zinggg!" Laurie nodded, "That's for sure!"
He thought you had to make it look like a bird! This (bottom) is the original surface of the frond. He took the darn things and glued them all together so he would have enough thickness to make a nice-looking decoy."
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