CRAB POT BUOYS
with Spencer Tinkham
Saturday, February 22nd | 10:30 AM - 4:30 PM
204 S Austin St Rockport, TX
$25 Supply Fee For Members, $75 For Nonmembers
Class Description:
If you’ve ever wanted to make your own duck decoy, this workshop is for you. Join artist, Spencer Tinkham, who has won over 30 national and international Best-in-Shows for duck decoys as each student creates a pair of Redhead decoys.
In this workshop, students will assemble, briefly sculpt, and paint a hen (female) and a drake (male) Redhead duck decoy. The decoys will have wooden heads, a keel, and a crab pot buoy body. Students will leave with a pair of decoys, knowledge of decoy making, and a memorable experience creating decoys with a nationally acclaimed artist. If weather and time permits, the decoys will be floated behind the Rockport Center for the Arts afterwards.
Instructor Bio:
From an early age, Spencer Tinkham (b.1992) became enthralled with the study of nature, admiring the rich diversity found along winding Chesapeake Bay tributaries. Tinkham realized he could preserve his fleeting encounters with nature's inhabitants through sculpture. In particular, a fascination with migratory shorebirds and waterfowl sparked his journey into the arts.
There is a long-standing tradition, from duck decoys to totem poles, of crafting wooden sculptures inspired by nature. Tinkham is self-taught and creates nature-inspired wood sculptures using primitive tools like a box cutter, hacksaw, and wood rasps. He combs databases of natural history museums for specimens with fascinating individual narratives. Tinkham then visits these natural history museums to collect photo reference of specific specimens, which inspire his sculptures. The ecological fates of flora, fauna and humans are intertwined. Tinkham shares specific stories of amphibians, birds, insects, plants and reptiles as a witness to natural and unnatural change. Their fragile beauty and unsung voices become magnified so as not to be missed by the careless eye.
Most recently, Spencer was awarded the Marilyn Newmark Memorial Grant by the National Sculpture Society. He was selected as a David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation Wildlife Artist of the Year 2023 finalist. “Colaptes auratus auratus” was juried into the prestigious Leigh Yawkey Woodson “Birds in Art 2022” museum exhibition and acquired for the museum collection. He has work in the Dollar Tree, Inc. corporate art collection, and his work is collected and exhibited internationally.
Saturday, February 23rd, 2025 | 12:15PM - 3:45PM
$25 For Members | $75 for Non-Members