Many people accept that accomplished artists have spent most of their lives honing the skills necessary for creating great, aesthetically pleasing work. While his interest in art has been lifelong, Orangeburg's Heyward "Bubba" O'Cain said the success he has enjoyed since taking a local class in woodworking nearly 15 years ago is "amazing."

O'Cain was recently accepted as one of 18 newly juried artists at the South Carolina Artisans Center in Walterboro for his work with hand-carved ducks and fish. The center's mission is "to interpret, market, preserve and perpetuate the folk art and fine craftsmanship of South Carolina Artisans while creating a better understanding of our rich and diverse cultural heritage," according to scartisanscenter.com.

Retired from the S. C. Department of Transportation after more than 30 years, O'Cain said it was an honor for him to be considered by the Artisans Center, let alone accepted from a field of 77 applicants.

"I didn't even know about the Artisans Center until I stopped in one time and looked around about two years ago on the way to Edisto Beach," O'Cain said. "I thought it was a neat place and unique because it's just South Carolina carvings. While I was talking with two of the ladies there about it, I told them about my work."

The Artisans Center is home to more than 250 of South Carolina's most talented artists and artisans who work in media ranging from clay and metal to glass, wood, fiber and film, Executive Director Gale Doggette said. O'Cain is one of only a handful of member artists from The T&D Region at the center.

"There are three artisans here at the center from Orangeburg County and one from Calhoun County," Doggette said. "We do not have any from Bamberg County. Out of the 46 counties in the state, 11 of them do not have an artist representing them.

"His (O'Cain's) work is some of the best decoy carving I have ever seen, and our jurors agreed," she said. "Mr. O'Cain scored perfect with all three of them. I am so confident in his work that I showed it at the Wildlife Festival in Charleston (Feb. 14-15). I think his work is as good as or even better than the majority of decoy carvers there."

The center sent O'Cain an invitation in November to submit his work for consideration by a panel of judges. Last year's call to entries was the center's first in three years, Doggette said.

"An artist will submit five digital photos of their work, which is complied and sent out of state for professional artists to judge. This is stage one," she said. "Each of these judges does their viewing and scoring without knowing how the others have scored the works. After the jurors are done, they send the scores to the center. After compiling those scores, the artists who have a score of 25 out of 35 are asked to bring their work in for a stage two juror to physically view. If they receive a score of 30 or better out of a possible 35, the artist is accepted into the center."

O'Cain has previously exhibited his work at Orangeburg County Fine Arts Center, Executive Director Beth Thomas said.

"It is truly beautiful," she said. "For several years, Bubba was part of the Orangeburg Wood Carvers Club that meets weekly at our facility."

When he first started, it took O'Cain a year to produce one duck carving, but a single carving now takes about three months to produce. O'Cain said he developed his own style of woodcarving and acrylic painting that uses techniques designed to make his work look as realistic as possible.

"I start out with a block of tupelo gum wood, and then I cut that out in the shape of a duck on a band saw," O'Cain said. "Then I carve in each feather individually. After I carve in the feather pattern, I take a wood-burning tool and I burn in each feather starting with the quill and then each line off from each feather. This helps them to look fluffy and not smooth, just as they do on a wild duck.

"The way I paint the duck involves painting each feather separately and more deeply with a hand brush rather than an air brush," he said. "Before I start, I try to borrow a duck from a taxidermist where I can get the true colors of the feathers. That's because even photographs have slight differences that can distort the true color."

Recently, O'Cain started producing woodcarvings of fish, specifically bluegill bream, using one he caught from a local pond as a model. In the past, his ducks have sold for $500 to $1,000 each, similar to the price the Artisans Center will charge.

While O'Cain has dabbled in art throughout his life, he said his interest sprang from other local artists of note.

"I used to do acrylic paintings," O'Cain said. "I also took two years of painting from (Denmark artist) Jim Harrison at Orangeburg High School back in the 1960s when he was an art teacher. I also took a woodworking class from Tom Wolfe at Orangeburg-Calhoun Tech about 15 years ago. But I really got interested in woodcarving when I saw some hand-carved and painted wooden ducks at an art show about 10 years ago.

"I always liked the look of ducks when I used to hunt, and I always thought I'd like to work with wood," O'Cain said. "This is exciting for me."

T&D Staff Writer Phil Sarata can be reached by e-mail at psarata@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5540. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

You must be logged in to comment.