Casey Edwards was driving home from his parents’ house in eastern Wisconsin when he made the decision.
He drove straight to the James River paper mill where he worked in Ashland, told his boss and the union representative that he was quitting, and walked away from a well-paying job that he couldn’t stand.
“They said, `Sign these papers in case you want to come back or in case you want to be in the union again,”‘ Edwards said.
“But I told them I was never working for anyone else except myself ever again.”
It wasn’t a snap decision. Edwards had pondered making a change for several years, but now he faced one more problem: How would he support his family?
Edwards decided he would carve wood decoys, turning a part-time hobby into a full-time vocation.
That was a dozen years ago, and Edwards is still sawing and grinding and sanding his way through blocks of wood like a tornado ripping through a cornfield.
Building a livelihood
On a 160-acre farm nestled in the rolling woods of central Bayfield County, Edwards has quietly built a life and a livelihood around his passion and talent for carving.
Now 44, he works in a window-filled workshop adjacent to an old barn that he converted into his family’s house. He can look out over his deer farm and the forest for inspiration.
Most of his work time is spent bent over a cobbler’s bench, tools at the ready, sawdust flying as a hand-held grinder hums away.
Edwards starts with a nondescript block of pine, or occasionally spruce, and works from plans he carries in his mind. He begins with a band saw, moves on to grinders and sanders and finishes with painting. The end products are finely detailed fish, birds and Santa statues.
Edwards is good, no doubt. He won first place in two divisions at the Gathering earlier this month, a prestigious national carver’s event in western Minnesota. He won the working decoy divisions for both owls and morning doves–decoys that can’t just look good but also, in theory, be usable in the field.
Edward’s snowy owl, life-sized with flapping wings, also won “Best of Show” for bird decoys, topping more than 100 entries. The owl is modeled after the type old-time crow hunters might have used.
“I’ve known him for about six years now, and I do this for a living, and, at least in the Midwest, there isn’t anyone out there as good as him,” said Rod Osvold of Perham, Minn., a promoter of carved decoy shows and competitions.
Osvold said Edwards has an uncanny ability to turn someone else’s ideas into reality.
“There are some great fish [decoy] carvers,” Osvold said. “But that’s all they do. Casey can do fish and then do everything else, and it’s all good. I don’t know what you call it exactly. Folk art carver maybe? But he’s about as good as it gets.”
A busy man
Edwards also is prolific. Last week his workshop held a dozen carved owls and fish, a couple of nearly finished wildlife lamps and assorted other pieces–freshly carved and ready to be painted.
“I did all of that yesterday,” Edwards said matter-of-factly. “If I’m not one of the best carvers around, I guarantee you I’m one of the fastest. I had to be. I backed myself into a corner not wanting a real job. I had to turn out pieces to make a living.”
This isn’t carving in the traditional, hand-whittling sort of way. This is high-speed work. Edwards’ shop is meticulously laid out so he can fly from one step to another, his power tools laid out like a surgeon’s or dentist’s tools. In fact, one of them is a dentist’s drill.
Want a rail or other shore bird decoy for your wall or fireplace mantle? From block of wood to intricately detailed bird, Edwards can produce it in about 15 minutes. A rusty nail becomes the bill. He’ll paint the bird later tonight and you can pick it up tomorrow.
Edwards at first apologizes for not using hand awls and fine files for most of his work because that’s what some customers expect to see after they see the detail in his work.
“I used to feel guilty about using all this power equipment. I tried to not tell people,” he said. “But this is the only way I can make a living doing this.”
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Slow start
Edwards grew up in Manitowoc and met his wife, Crystal, at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh where he was a national champion gymnast. They came to Bayfield County to visit a friend and fell in love with the area. They bought the old farm in 1979 and settled in a few years later. They now have three teenagers.
Edwards majored in biology and considered going into a conservation field. But he wanted to be on his new farm–to be in the woods where he hunted deer and bear, fished local lakes and mingled with nature.
But there was that little problem of making a living.
Both his mother and father were good artists, and his dad was a natural with woodworking. They had art shop connections in eastern Wisconsin and had friends who collected wildlife art.
“I think I inherited most of this talent,” he said. “The problem is, I didn’t know I had it for a lot of years. I think we inherit more than we know from our parents.”
Edwards got busy making geese, ducks, shore birds–just about anything anyone wanted. And people kept asking for more.
“The first were friends of my parents and they just flipped out over what I made,” Edwards said. “They loved it. I don’t know if they were flipping out over it to make me feel good or if they really liked it, but that’s all the encouragement I needed.”
Within a year he was selling pieces in art and tourist shops in Door County, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. He started getting calls from prospective clients.
Word of mouth
Virtually all of his business has been by word of mouth or from people at decoy and art shows.
“They’d call and say, `Do you do Santas?’ or, `Do you do hummingbirds?’ And I’d say, `Well, yeah.’ I’d never done them before. But I knew I could,” Edwards said.
He did them and they’ve been selling ever since.
You name it, Edwards has carved it, especially if it flies or swims–swans, shore birds, waterfowl, songbirds. He’s done most all of the fish–crappies, walleyes, muskies and trout. He has also carved otters, pheasants, deer and bear.
Edwards has carved Santas flying on geese, a Canada goose rocking chair for kids, lamps made out of driftwood with carved fish, and a bowl in the shape of a swan. He has crafted Humpty Dumpty and Pinocchio as well as a few busts of presidents. He’s also working on a grasshopper.
His work ends up somewhere between collector’s decoy and folk art. It’s not quite the highly polished art found in galleries, but most of his works are modeled after gunning bird, or field, decoys.
His customers often are ordinary Northland residents who love to hunt and fish and love the memorabilia that reflect those pursuits.
“My best customers are women, really,” Edwards said. “They like the birds, especially owls and the unusual. But they also buy the fish. They may not fish for walleye, but their husband does and they know what he’d like.”
Most of his work is priced between $40 and $200–well within reach of the guy who sees one of Edwards’ creations as perfect for the rec-room wall or the cabin.
New ideas
Edwards has an eye for the unusual and finds ways to incorporate driftwood, junk and old sporting gear into his work.
His table and floor lamps use driftwood and burled trunks he finds walking in the woods or farm fields. He makes whirligigs and weather vanes out of old fishing gear and rusted junk he finds in fields.
Edwards collects old ice fishing gear, snowshoes, trout creels–just about anything from the outdoor sporting world–to use in future pieces.
“I’ll be driving down the highway 60 m.p.h. and see something I like and I’ll turn around and go back and get it out of the ditch,” Edwards said.
Take a rusted old fan blade from some small appliance, for example. To Edwards, it’s the start of an entire weather vane with one of his carved birds as the focal point.
“It all just comes to me,” he said. “I’ve never copied anyone. I don’t even need books or patterns anymore, except maybe for the colors on a wood duck or a pheasant. It’s in my head. I remember it.”
Edwards said he could make a living just making wildlife lamps. A couple of years ago, he sold dozens of carved bats. Shore birds take him only a few minutes and bring him a quick $40. Waterfowl decoys are always popular.
He has a 55-inch musky hanging in a bar in Detroit Lakes, Minn., and a flock of giant Canada geese, wings cupped for landing, hanging in a bar in Stevens Point, Wis. Filling taverns, restaurants and lodges could be a full-time job, he said.
“But I have to keep trying new things. I can’t do the same thing very long or I get bored. I won’t make a lot of anything,” Edwards said.
Promoting himself
Osvold thinks Edwards needs to promote himself more. Edwards admits that he’s uncomfortable selling himself so he has never pushed his work on local shops and is virtually unknown in northwestern Wisconsin.
Edwards now has hired a business manager to create a brochure and take orders at decoy shows while Edwards does what he likes best–carving.
Osvold said Edwards has the ability to be nationally known for his carvings.
“The nice thing is that he isn’t like an artist who won’t listen to anyone. Tell him what you want and he can make it. That’s why he’s so good,” Osvold said.
The best he can be
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Edwards said he promised his mother on her deathbed last year that he would work to be the best carver he could be. But he said he’s not doing it for recognition, like “best of show” ribbons or trophies.
Edwards got enough gut-wrenching competition when he was a NCAA gymnastics champion. He even made the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, only to be kept from competing when the U.S. boycotted the Games in Moscow.
He said he has left sports, along with competition for glory’s sake, to his past life.
“I love the competition of carving, to look at someone else’s piece and say `Yeah, that’s nice, but I can do better.’ And then go do it,” Edwards said.
“I’ve brought a lot of gymnastics to my carving … the intensity. But I don’t need to win another thing in life. I’m full. I’m doing this because this is what I’m supposed to be doing. This is what my talent is for.”