Award-winning carver Mike Ford specializes in realistic wildfowl carvings. Carving since 1983, the lifelong resident of Michigan carves from primarily tupelo wood and hand paints each to achieve a realistic appearance. Studying with various Master Carvers in the beginning, Mike combines his love of nature with his carving and painting skills to produce a lifelike realism.
His work has placed in many national carving competitions including Ward World Championships in Ocean City, Maryland, the North American Wildfowl Championships in Livonia, Michigan, ODCCA Decoy Show in Cleveland, Ohio and several local shows. He is sought after to judge many carving competitions as well as provide instruction to future carvers.
He retired from an engineering position in 2000 and now carves full time. In 2002 Mike was one of 5 artist's selected from Michigan to carve a bird for the White House Christmas Tree and in December 2002 attended a reception at the White House in Washington D.C., hosted by First Lady, Mrs. Laura Bush.
He has always been very active in local carving associations and is past president of the TriCity Carvers. Mike and his wife Karen live on a lake near Midland, Michigan. Living on the lake allows him to study numerous species of wildfowl in their natural setting, as reference for many of his pieces.
Numerous pieces of Mike's work are currently found in private collections in both Michigan and Ohio.
In the past year Mike has written two articles
for Wildfowl Carving Magazine. The summer issue described "How
to Carve a European Starling" and the Fall issue covered
the painting the starling.