Ducks by Shattucks

[alden]

When Frank Shattuck is not making beautiful suits and tweed hunting jackets, he is carving. And this is what he carves. They are sitting on a treasure trove of vintage cloth, lucky feathered things.

IMG_3687 by The London Lounge, on Flickr

Beautiful work Frank. I can see you in them.

Cheers

[Huzir]

Beautifully carved.

I'm increasingly noticing that people who are talented with their hands in one sphere are often similarly gifted in other forms of close, precise work. A friend of mine is a prominent neuroscientist; when he interviews new applicants to his lab, the first thing he looks for is some history of manual dexterity. "Do you cook? Do you garden? Do you sew?" he asks them.

If they don't have a hobby or passion that's hands-on, it's a red flag. "The one time I hired someone who didn't do anything with his hands," he grumbled, "in his first experiment he completely destroyed all the DNA samples. Took his pipette and cross-contaminated everything. Straight A student on paper but a complete idiot in real life." My friend himself is a great flamenco guitarist. Some of his scientific insights have come to him when he was lost in the throes of hours of playing. To him, genius lives in the hands, not just in the head. Or rather, the two are inextricably linked.

[alden]

A Message from Mr Shattuck and his ducks...

FullSizeRender by The London Lounge, on Flickr

Just to let you gents know that these carvings are for sale. Each is unique. Each individual chunk of wood dictates the finished sculpture. Each has the life and heart and soul of not only the craftsman , but the tree from which they came. Please feel free to contact me at fshattuck1936@gmail.com.

Frank

[Russell]

Unfortunately Frank is a bit far away for him to fit me for a coat but one of his charming ducks - a Little Awk I think - has migrated across the Atlantic & is apparently swimming on a sea of LL Donegal (sensible bird).

I've carved a few ornamental decoy ducks myself years ago; one school of carving attempts to replicate the bird exactly via carving & painting which at it's best visually results in something more akin to taxidermy than carving. Another school, the one I adopted, follows the stylised carved & painted depiction of the bird as used in many of the vintage commercially made decoys whilst a third school concentrates on a far more rustic unpainted representation & is following in the footsteps of many village carved decoys.

I always thought that of all the three schools the rustic carvers captured life, movement & character to greater effect than the more anatomically correct carvers did.

Franks little rustic bird has all of that in spades - not only of itself but also the character of it's creator.

I couldn't be more charmed by it.

Regards
Russell

Ps if only half the photo shows, save it & then view as it's all there really.

[alden]

50f37c4efd36737331f51e914f6d8342 by The London Lounge, on Flickr