Description: A guide to a fascinating hobby! Wendell Gilley was a bird watcher and artist who carved birds in wood on Mount Desert Island, Maine. He started out carving two-inch wooden birds for Abercrombie & Fitch. The book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs and with drawings.
Description: This letter acknowledges receipt of a letter and chisel from Gilley, and discusses various carvings including a spotted sandpiper on a mussel shell and two pairs of quail
Description: This letter discusses correspondence between Wendell Gilley and Byron Cheever, author and magazine publisher, about Gilley's book. The author of the letter makes suggestions about paper and cover art and discusses copyright.
Description: Letter discusses sending text, artwork, and photos for the book, Art of Bird Carving, to Byron Cheever. Flying goose, bob-white and blue quail carvings are also mentioned.
Description: Letter acknowledges receipt of a copy of O'Brien's letter to Wendell H. Gilley. Cheever promises to work on the material for Gilley's book but says hes is in the process of getting the summer issue of North American Decoys ready for the printer.
Description: Cheever writes that he has received the materials for Gilley's book and that he read the new chapter on decoys and thought it was well done. He also talks about meeting carver Harold Haertel in Chicago at a meeting of decoy collectors.
Description: Note from O'Brien included with a copy of a letter from Byron Cheever. O'Brien mentions having been asked by Peggy Rockefeller if Gilley would sell her a flock of geese.
Description: Photocopy from the original by Byron Cheever listing questions he had regarding publishing Gilley's book. Gilley's answers as dictated to Donal C. O'Brien, Jr. are in pencil after each question.
Description: This letter praises Wendell Gilley's inventiveness, his carving and his book . O'Brien refers to a vise for holding decoys and carvings for painting that Wendell includes in the book.
Description: Letter describing O'Brien's sailing trip around Buckle Island, Swans Island and others and the eiders and ospreys he saw. This letter also mentions Gilley's idea for a museum.
Description: O'Brien acknowledges receipt of a spotted sandpiper carving from Gilley and discusses a handle Gillely designed for an X-Acto blade as well as decoy designs.
Description: Letter discusses publishing Gilley's book in a limited edition as well as including a photograph of Gilley with an osprey as an insert. It also mentions a carving of an owl and another of a bobwhite quail on a hatchet.
Description: Wendell Gilley standing in front of garage holding two carvings, an eagle and his first carving, a mallard made in 1930. On back of photo: "Wendell, Gilley, summer 1971, taken by Diane L. Kelly, his 1st & present bird in progress."
Description: Catalog of an exhibition of Wendell Gilley's bird carvings held at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia from October 29, 1976 through January 9, 1977
Description: Sign at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for Wendell Gilley's Downeast Bird Carvings exhibit, October 29, 1976 through January 9, 1977.