The art of carving, as practiced by James Buttonow

James Buttonow first learned to carve wooden duck decoys for hunting when he was a youngster in Sag Harbor. Now, nearly seven decades later, he has honed his craft into an art.

Mr. Buttonow, now 78, is a master at shaping birds, fish and other creatures in different sizes and styles: everything from lifelike hawks and ducks, to more stylized primitive depictions of local shore birds and geese. A selection of his creations is on display at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor for the month of March.

“You can’t imagine how this place has changed,” the lifelong Sag Harbor resident said in a recent interview, recalling a bygone era and simpler time when his uncles taught him to carve decoys. Mr. Buttonow’s father was a carpenter, but the artisan credits his uncles with starting him on the path to mastery. “They were great hunters,” he said, explaining that “they carved decoys and stuff, so I started with them.”

Mr. Buttonow’s highly detailed wildlife carvings have since won several blue ribbons in national decoy show competitions, including one for a magnificent and finely rendered red-tailed hawk he entered into a “decorative birds of prey” contest in 1986. He has a goose on display at the White House, his birds were featured in an exhibition at the Long Island Maritime Museum in West Sayville in 2003, and his work was included in a book, “Better Homes and Gardens Country Style.”

Mr. Buttonow and his brother Joe helped build the large sperm whale replica for Sag Harbor’s first Whalers Festival in 1963. Although the event was created to draw attention to the historic village, Mr. Buttonow noted a little ruefully that the tourists came and it’s never been the same since. “That did it,” Mr. Buttonow said.

While he has sold his carvings over the years, Mr. Buttonow worked making custom furniture, painting houses, and scalloping to pay the bills. Today, he and his wife of 39 years, Melanie, work as custodians at the John Jermain Library.

Speaking as perhaps one of her husband’s biggest fans, Mrs. Buttonow said: “He’s done everything—he’s worth a mil

lion dollars—but we’ve struggled all our lives.” The couple, who have two daughters and two granddaughters, live with their dog Holly in an attractive and well-kept home in Bay Point and Mr. Buttonow does his carving in an attached workshop.

Inside, decades of clutter, tools and knickknacks fill every shelf, table and ledge. Carvings—some completed and others works in progress—are everywhere, offering a narrative of Mr. Buttonow’s ongoing evolution as an artist. He has experimented with materials, scale and subject, and even tried his hand at several styles of painting. Whether or not Mr. Buttonow has succeeded at all he attempts, it’s clear from his well worn and project-crowded workshop that he’s never stopped striving.

Even his van, parked outside, is filled with carvings and scores of thrift store and yard sale finds.

The John Jermain Library has a display case full of Mr. Buttonow’s work. In addition, his personal photographs and paintings of ducks adorn the staircase wall, and wide-eyed owl carvings are perched atop bookcases upstairs.

The artist’s crowning achievement remains in his home. Mr. Buttonow’s award winning life-size red-tailed hawk is a perfect specimen and his favorite carving yet, though he made a similar one and sold it years ago. He said the hawk required three weeks and some 120 hours of work, including burning each line of each feather into the wood with a special burning tool, thinner than a razor blade.

“Every feather and everything is exactly as to the living bird,” Mr. Buttonow said. He works from a photograph, carving the shape of the feather first, then sanding it and meticulously burning in the lines. “Every one of the lines is burned in,” he said. “It takes hours.”

Mr. Buttonow said well-known Sag Harbor decoy maker Bob Hand helped him with the hawk. “He’s one of the best,” he said of Mr. Hand, who has a workshop on the corner of Madison Street and Jermain Avenue in the village. Mr. Buttonow said Mr. Hand taught him advanced techniques of decorative carving, including how to burn in fine feather marks and how to finish the detailing with paint, his least favorite part of the arduous process.

Mr. Buttonow has also carved a life-size goose, which he sold, and a pair of green-winged teal, a species of very small, brightly patterned ducks found locally in Mecox and other tidal creeks, mudflats and marshes. Awed by the iridescent colors of their feathers, Mr. Buttonow said: “I wouldn’t shoot one; Christ, they’re too pretty.”

His primitive work has a more folk art feel to it and Mr. Buttonow said these pieces have been his best sellers. Among the carvings are his boxes of birds, which open to reveal two sides with various open compartments containing an arrangement of simple but attractive bird carvings and various carved objects, including shotgun shells, bird calls, sticks and cording.

Mr. Buttonow’s “Box of East Coast Shore Birds” and “Box of Passenger Pigeons” were inspired by a similar piece created in 1810, which he saw in a 1935 sports magazine.

He’s currently working on full-scale carvings of a shotgun and cartridge belt, which appear to be shaping up nicely.

“I do carvings of a little bit of other things besides birds,” Mr. Buttonow noted. He pointed out a number of finely crafted wooden fox and muskrat traps with fully functional parts. They are exact replicas of their metal counterparts, but Mr. Buttonow has left them natural, clean of paint or stain.

He originally planned to make all the wooden shotgun parts functional, but later realized that they would break as soon as someone pulled the trigger. “I was surprised how good it came out,” Mr. Buttonow said.

While some dedicated collectors have bought from Mr. Buttonow for years, he remains a somewhat undiscovered gem of Sag Harbor, despite his many years in the former whaling port. Still, he has no shortage of ideas, drive or ambition, and continues to work “almost seven days a week, four to five hours a day.”

For more information about the James Buttonow exhibition at the John Jermain Library in Sag Harbor, call 725-0049.