By Tim Callahan
On Saturday, August 3, the Michigan Duck Stamp Competition was held at the Bay City State Park in conjunction with the Saginaw Bay Waterfowl and Outdoor Festival held every year there to celebrate Michigan’s rich waterfowling tradition and history. Along with the duck stamp contest and judging, all kinds of activities like the regional and state qualifier for the world’ duck calling contest in Stuttgart. A wildlife photography contest, dog fun hunt trials, also many seminars on outdoor related stuff!
I’ve set up my artwork and decoy collection in the expo many times. There’s always a nice breeze coming off the bay, and what a beautiful place for an outdoor festival.
The event is sponsored by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Michigan Duck Hunters Association, along with the Friends of Bay City State Park.
This year I decided to change my design approach. I’ve always liked to illustrate my birds in flight. This year I chose to depict a pair of redheads, members of the diver duck family, floating by an old wooden duck decoy carved by Andy Meyers of Saginaw Bay back in 1920. One of his clients was Louise Chevrolet. Unlike the factory decoy companies of the day, like the Mason Duck Decoy Company of Detroit that produced thousands of wooden decoys, Andy Meyers didn’t carve vary many. Maybe a couple of hundred. Mostly for his own use on the bay. I own two of his decoys, and used one of them in my design. These decoys are great examples of a lost form of Michigan folk art.
Another switch in gears for me this time was not to attend this year’s festival and to stay home in Newberry to finish working on my federal duck stamp entry. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sponsors this competition and the deadline is fast approaching!
In this year’s Michigan Duck Stamp competition, artists from all over the United State are invited to submit an entry, which brings a lot of good talent but also makes the odds a little tougher to place or win.
A disadvantage with not attending this year’s festival, which I’m now regretting, is that I don’t get to view all of the entries up close. While the judging is taking place, I try to keep busy. You just pray for that phone call that I seem to never get. I look at the time and figure better luck next year, dude, and take off for town to get supplies for company that’s on their way north but bring my cell phone anyway.
I think I was lost in the cereal aisle when the phone started going off. It was the duck stamp contest coordinator, Brent Fetting, texting me that I had taken third place and that I’d receive a phone call. Then it rang. It was Gaylord Jowett, who tirelessly works to keep Michigan’s Duck Stamp going, congratulating me personally on my third place finish.
Here’s the top three:
1st place: Gunner Hilliard of New Jersey
2nd Place: Adam Oswald of North Dakota
3rd Place: Tim Callahan of Newberry, Michigan.
I’d like to thank contest coordinator Brent Fetting for dropping off my entry on his way back home to Wisconsin. I did get to see the top three up close, and I won’t miss next year’s contest. And it was great having my family here Saturday night to help me celebrate.
