“A story of true love”
A long time ago, when the first colonists settled in North America, they used decoys carved in wood to hunt birds. As time went by, far from realizing that they were being decimated, they worked on perfecting such carvings, thinking that those birds “were no longer so easy to trick”. That was the start of the art we have engaged in…
However, today these wooden birds are not propped up by a single stick anymore so that hunters could fix them on the coasts. Now, legs are “a whole different story”: they are created in puttied, polished and welded iron until they look real. The eyes are not what they used to be, just empty slots; birds now hold lifelike eyes, made of mouth-blown glass, as bottles would be manufactured. Their heads resemble bird gestures, and their long beaks are crafted in polished bronze. Then, birds are delicately sculpted to attain the proper texture. Finally, paint, patina and wax are applied. The last stage of the process involves searching for worn-out pieces of wood on the coasts of great lakes to be used as the base where birds will perch on.
Birds are, actually, “hollow and built”. This is achieved by adding pieces of Andean wood: “Nothofagus Nervosa” or “Raulí”. They are not created from a single block of wood. This grants them a “box structure”, which is more stable, as if they were musical instruments. But there may be something that is not that obvious. Before every work, a thorough investigation of each bird is carried out… and the main ingredient: lots of love for this job!