MILES SMITH 1905 - 1993

Miles Smith worked for many years as a shipwright and developed a deep affection for the wildlife of the St. Clair River in his native Michigan. He made his first fish and duck decoys for his own use, but in the late 1970s he realized that others wanted his decoys and he started making them to sell to the public. Miles often used a u-shaped stamp to represent the scales on his fish and the feathers on his ducks. He acknowledged that other carvers make more realistic decoys, but prefered his personal approach, which included working on a grand scale. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and was featured in an exhibition and related catalogue in 1999 entitled Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum .

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