Clarence "Juce" McKenney

By Bill Einsig

Like most competitive decoy carvers today, Clarence McKenney, of Mt. Holly, Virginia, came to the art form as a hunter making his own working decoys. But in the decades to follow, McKenney's deep understanding and extensive experience with waterfowl and the outdoors made him a carver tough to beat and a mentor without equal.

IWCA Celebrated Carver:  Clarence "Juce" McKenney

Following high school in the early 1960s, McKenney served a stint in the military then completed a two-year college program in electronics. As a teenager, he had worked on the boats of Chesapeake Bay commercial fishermen, and he was more attracted to the water than to electronics.

He bought a boat, collected a commercial license, and cashed in on the lucrative eel fishery that was just starting in his area of the Bay. He recalls those long days as good times. With several hundred eel pots and very good pay—$1800 pots at times—for eels shipped to Europe, McKenney settled into a routine of fishing through the season, then carving and hunting through the winter. Perfect!

By the mid-1980s, the eel population in his area was nearly depleted, and McKenney switched to fishing a mixture of pots for crabs, peelers, and eels. With up to 700 pots to check each day, along with all the other facets of sorting and shipping the harvest, McKenney's days, and nights, were long and hard.

Area carvers who know McKenney well, say that during the '70s and '80s, McKenney was difficult to beat in those early competitive shows along the East Coast. His birds were always natural on the water, and had the sharp detail and coloring earned by keen and careful observation of a waterman.

Then, in 1989, near tragedy struck. McKenney toppled in a simple fall but landed fully on his left elbow breaking his arm in four places. Nearly 20 years later, that left arm is still rehabilitating after surgeries, steel plates, and tendon replacements. For a left-handed carver like McKenney, this accident should have ended his carving career.

Not only did McKenney continue his commercial fishing with one good arm, he also continued his waterfowl hunting and decoy carving. He taught himself to carve with his right hand and to relearn all the fine detailed movements most carvers take for granted. Today, McKenney feels he's about as good a right-hand carver as he was left-handed before his accident, but he doesn't feel his right-handed painting is quite as good. In 2007, McKenney entered the Lem & Steve competition at Ocean City and came away with a First in Bufflehead and a Second in Goldeneye. Both were right-hand birds.

For years before his accident, McKenney traveled to carving shows along the Mid-Atlantic Coast where he became a respected carver and easy-going mentor to novice carvers. Always willing to share techniques and to comment honestly on the birds of other carvers, McKenney was sought by less-experienced carvers looking to improve their work.

In 1987, while on their way home from a carving show, McKenney and Wade Johnson decided to focus their teaching on a carving guild of their own in the Northern Neck of Virginia. They formed the Rappahannock River Decoy Carvers and Collectors Guild. Twenty years later, that guild is still strong with notable carvers who developed under the able tutelage of "Juce" McKenney.

Once a month, Rappahannock carvers meet at Juce's shop to carve, paint, learn, and kibitz over what has become the shop's main attraction—an attached aviary. McKenny added a 20-foot x15-foot wire enclosure to the end of his shop and knocked out an opening for a huge picture window. Now, carvers work at a bench on one side of the window while 20-some ducks preen, swim, tip, dive, run, swim, splash, and play on the other.

The enclosure consists of the same plastic-coated one-inch by one-half-inch wire mesh McKenney used for his pots. The floor of the enclosure is three feet above ground. McKenney says this separation is one of the factors that keep his birds so clean. They never wallow in the dirt or mud and, therefore, don't have the messy feathers typical of many aviary birds.

The central point of the enclosure, of course, is the foot-deep four-foot by eight-foot pool that butts up against the window of the shop. McKinney changes the water in the pool twice each day and hoses down the mesh at the same time to keep waste from fouling the birds' feathers. Food is always available in hoppers next to the pool, but McKinney also throws a few handfuls into the water just because the divers seem to enjoy eating the old-fashioned way.

At one time, McKenney purchased his birds from nurseries in the U.S., but after buying several from Canada, he noticed the Canadian birds had a certain natural, wild streak lacking in his U.S. birds. He visited the nursery in Canada and almost immediately noticed the reason for this wild streak. While looking over the pens of captive birds, he saw wild birds landing in the enclosures. "Of course!" he thought. If wild birds mate with captive birds, the offspring will exhibit those wild properties. While most U.S. breeders work to maintain the domestic strains, these Canadian breeders seem to accept the contributions of wild birds.

What this means is that McKenney's aviary birds are as close to wild birds as you can get. They are certainly cleaner than wild birds and still maintain a genetic "wildness" that brings them as close as possible to their wild cousins.

After 40 years of working with his own commercial fishing license, and even more years beyond that when he helped his family as a youth, McKenney had to quit the fishing business in Spring 2007. As a member of that post-50 sandwich generation, he's now dealing with family issues that demand most of his time. Even though his life as a commercial fisherman left little time for any other activities, he is now challenged by the new responsibilities he has recently accepted. "There are days," he says, "that sitting here in the shop and watching these birds is the best relaxation I can find."

McKenney explained that his birds were just completing their molt and that within a week or two most would be gorgeous in the new colors. A bufflehead rolled onto its side with one wing folded under water and the other stretched high above while the bill searched deep in the armpit for some nasty, itchy feather that just had to be removed.

"You know," McKenney said, "sitting here and watching these birds helps me understand how some of the world's best decorative carvers come up with the poses we see in competitions."

"Does that mean Juce McKenney will have a decorative or two for some future competition?" I asked. "How could you avoid it?"

"Well, I don't know about a decorative," Juce said, "but I plan to be back in Ocean City next year with a rig and the Big Boys."

And, you know, for a carver who can start his day at 2 a.m. and check 700 crab and eel pots a day for 40 years, when it takes 400 pots just to pay expenses; and wash down and replace his aviary pool of water twice a day; and learn to carve and paint with his off-hand till he was as good as before; and commit to many hours of family care each day; you just don't doubt the resolve and commitment of this humble carver who is willing to share all with anyone willing to learn.

Nominated by Heck Rice for the Rappahannock River Decoy Carvers and Collectors Guild, 2007.