Goldfish wrote:Ok. What's Illinois style vs others?
When you start looking into this you come across terms like "styles" or "schools" and it takes some digging to tell what the differences are with each. To complicate matters more, within a style may be a school. At least thats how I've found it to be.
The Delaware style is a good example. The head, neck transition to the breast may be different than from another area but even within that region there is the Blair School and you can see examples of it in contemporary carver Geoff Vines work. Other examples of the Delaware style can be seen in another contemporary carvers work, Jode Hillman. Both master carvers and painters whose work I really admire.
A lot of the style work came from market hunters who carved their own decoys, and some for others, and many within one area would share or be copied. They designed and carved what worked best in the waters they hunted. Swift moving rivers versus tidal flats and bays could result in varying differences. Rounded bottoms, flat bottoms, eyes, no eyes, hollowed and not was just a matter of location.