George is from Blackwood, New Jersey and can be emailed at gsimmermansr@juno.com
He was born in 1942.
Began carving and oil painting wildlife while in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960’s. While assigned to Top Secret military operations around the world I was normally restricted to special quarters and had very little to do so he bought a set of oil paints and began copying nature photos from old National Graphics magazines.
It snowballed into painting on canvas then saw blades, muskrat boards and then carving and painting cedar fish, turtles and birds. George has no formal art instruction but did listen to an art instructor teaching an Air Force wives club to oil paint on a couple of occasions.
He uses mostly use white cedar to carve but finds a lot of mixed drift wood from along the Delaware Bay and Delaware River after high tides. He also use the same oil paints on my decoys as on canvas paintings. Sometimes Using acrylic paints to cover the base for quicker drying and then using either clear polyurethane or clear spray lacquer to put over the paint job once it drys – both fish and birds.
He belong to the National Arts Program and has displayed art and carvings in galleries in Millville and Hammonton New Jersey. He also have done street art shows in Millville NJ, Pitman NJ, Woodbury NJ, Ocean City NJ and in Blackwood NJ.
George has sold carved fish and birds on E-Bay.
He received a Best in Show Oil Painting Medium Award for a painting of a forest in NW US. while displaying at a juried show in Pitman NJ. I have also displayed works through the National Arts Program in the Jewish Cultural Center in Cherry Hill N.J.
photos and info provided by George Simmerman Sr.