Nearly half the lots in this sale are from the estate of Gary Avadanian of Reading, Massachusetts, a talented musician and artist. He studied at Boston University’s School of Music and spent more than 20 years touring with bands and working as a studio musician. His interest in hunting and fishing led to a passion for carving decoys, which became a side career.
Almost all his decoys were carved by hand, with very limited use of power tools. In a 1995 interview with Decoy Magazine, he said every bird was created with wood he gathered himself, preferably white cedar, and that he used between eight and ten coats of gunstock oil, oil-based paints and waterproof epoxy. He equated creating a decoy to playing a jazz solo, saying they both demonstrate “a mood of individual expression”.