Ep. 611: The Duck Stamp Champ

This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast.

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You can do both, Okay, the big thing would be nicer.

Okay. It's the time of year. Well, I don't want people to lose sight of what we're doing here. It's the time of year when you go you're like, oh shit, I gotta buy my duck stamp. Great, and this is not a lie. I just got mine today. Oh, this is not a lie.

They're in stock now, great.

Where'd you go post office?

My desk? I had some great I have performula.

I'll have to do that.

Hopefully a couple end up.

One time and Kylie grab something I needed to and uh, for just it's a long story. It's time of year and you gotta go buy your duck stamp. You know we're gonna do this out talking about the movie Fargo. No one ever does. They can't. They never do it without talking about Fargo. You people have seen Fargoll know what I'm getting at. It's time of year and you gotta go buy your duck stamp. And we have extremely

It's gotta be right, that's what they say.

I'm gonna ask someone who's not you. I'm gonna ask another painter. We also have I'm like, there's so much going on with the show, it's complicated. We also have the junior duck stamp winter joining from South Korea where it's one am. So I'm trying to be aware of her time. She's good for a minute. Yeah, okay, so we're good, all right, Kelsey Kelsey. We had Kelsey Morris come in. She's up normally No, no discredit, Chuck, She's normally our She's like the resident wildlife artist. Yeah, painter,

No, But I'm aware. It's the highest honor.

It's the highest honor in waterfowl, yes, painting.

Yeah, it's the pinnacle. You know, that's what people we were talking about this earlier. People strive their entire careers, year on year to win the duck stamp.

So it's like like in Fargo.

Said, yeah, but yeah, it's it's a high honor. It's the pinnacle. Of the Duck Stamp career, you know, to win the Ducks Stamp.

So and uh, this year is Montanan Chuck black one from right Local?

Yeah, Belgrade.

How many times you submitted?

This is my tenth time?

So has anyone ever won it twice? Do you call it winning it? What do you call it? Yeah?

Went winning it? Yeah?

No, the there's three brothers from Minnesota. A couple of people now I think have won it twice. But the three brothers the hot means, which is what they referenced in Fargo, which is funny how old that movie is. And they were winning back then. I think combined between the three, they're at fifteen now are they still?

Yeah? They won the last two years?

What?

Yeah, so this was my year because when you win, you have to sit out for three Oh it's like real.

So they won, it's like drawn.

Yeah.

Yeah, so they won the last two years and I was like, this is my year.

I got to get in while they're out.

God, no, kid, we're gonna talk about that whole We're gonna talk about that whole world. Max Bart is here just because he likes to hunt ducks lot, and you've bought many a ducks.

Down many, but I haven't bought mine this year, so this is a good reminder.

I keep buying more than I need on an accident, because every year I forget that my kids don't need them, but I buy them for my little kids and then I later realized they didn't need them.

Yeah.

I typically buy at least three a year, one for me, one for my dog, and then like maybe a couple spares just in case if someone doesn't have them.

It's a good thing to buy an access Yeah.

Yeah, because all the money goes to Wetlands Conservation.

So giving back a little bit.

Brent Reeves is here fresh from the squirrel Cookoff, little as a tick. I was telling Brent my body the I have a trapper buddy who I was talking to him about binoculars yesterday, and he just mentioned casually in passing he just got back from seeing Brent Reeves at the squirrel cookoff, as though that's like a thing to go do. Oh man.

Apparently a lot of people thought that there was thousands of people there. It was good. Yeah, it was forty teams every year. They limited to forty and then they come in with their recipe their squirrels. If they don't have squirrel was that supply for them there? It's all free. It's a good family deal. It was just it's it's just a great event.

What kind of loser would go to a squirrel cookoff without squirrels?

Well, I mean there's a team there from Alaska last year.

It should have a bunch of pine squirrels.

Well, gray squirrels and fox squirrels. That's what it's. That's what you're limited to cook it's resident there of Arkansas. And if you don't have them, the folks, the good folks.

There natural state. I mean the hack right out of the gate like that. You know, I don't know, that's cool. Yeah, And you said, Phil, I'm glad they got those. I'm glad they got squirrels there. Yeah, they're share with everybody. Watch just Chuck Black. You know how you won the duck stamp contest, Well, people could win the Arizona raffle.

There you go.

You like that little transition they teach that painter school.

Do they know.

We've been talking a bunch about in Arizona, like way too talked about it, way too much about Arizona's boarded uh Commission, Wildlife Commission, their decision to eliminate governor's tag auctions. So their decisions, their decision to move away from allocating some number of big game tags to the highest bidder and instead moving those tags to raffle systems where everybody can have a chance to win rather than just the highest bidder. As we've explored to the point of nausea,

Maybe if you didn't call me pissy at the tip of.

Okay, September one, twenty twenty four to December fifteenth, twenty twenty four, so we are well into the raffle period. You can enter to win all kinds of gear packages, but you can also enter to win big game tags. I went on the other day and spent I bought

Oh and you can you can purchase now until ending at nine pm Arizona time on December fifteenth.

But now that I bought my ten, I don't want any whoever goes on there. Don't do the mule deer one. I'm hoping I'm the only one that did meal deer and I win that thing. Good luck, So you're not going to be the only one. No, I always I always buy into these raffles. You know, I haven't bought into Arizona, but I'm buying an Arizona. Whenever they have a Montana Raffler or Alaska raffle, I always buy in.

And there are all kinds of other prizes, and then like the more you buy their discounts. I mean they've set it up in a great way.

So yep, uh okay, we got a new folks, I'll check this out. We got a new collab ammal we've worked on with our buddies at sig Sour and we have a new bonded lead ammal which is out now and you can go check it out. I'm packing right now to go moose hunting. I'm not I'm not personally moose hunting this year, but uh, my buddies are moose hunting.

Hi?

Who've killed that lion?

In the background, I'm in my son's nursery.

I know.

Yeah, So I had a broadcast on Friday in my office and the the Wi Fi was terrible in the Wi Fi boxes right next to his nursery. So that's why I'm in here.

But there's still a line in the background.

Yeah. Yeah, it's right above his changing table. Yeah.

When way he feels nice and safe when he's get change.

Well, you know, Travis said, you can do whatever you want with the nursery as long as the cat stays in there, because it used to be his office.

And so, yes, Danielle is in a nursery. Behind her is her changing table and perched over it as a stuffed mountain lion, like he's waiting for the baby to show up so he can nail it. Danielle's got brand new, brand new cookbook out, Wild in the Whole seasonal recipes for the just cook Danielle phenomenal cook. Tell us about the book, man. First off, wy could folks find it?

October eighth is the pub date, so right around the corner. I don't know when this podcast is being released, but October eighth, it's coming out wherever books are sold.

Yeah.

And so this is a project I've been working on, I want to say, for about three or four years.

It's really beautiful. It's really beautiful.

Thank you. Yes, I spent a long long time thinking about it. I had some A couple of publishers reached out to me a few years ago asking for me to do a cookbook, And so once I started to think about what I wanted to do and really like what's missing in the market of cookbooks, I kind of came to the realization that one, I wanted to do something that represented me and the way that I live and that lifestyle and type of cooking that I do.

Yeah, you, I don't. You're the main if I go to get a recipe somewhere, You're the main place I would go to get a recipe.

You're nice.

Yeah, you're mostly the only person who's like actual recipes I follow. Really, I make a lot of stuff without really paying attention to what I'm making, But yeah, I wind up having a lot of your food, and then I like specifically make your recipes. I like your recipes that much.

Well, that is that's a big compliment. I appreciate it. I think, you know, I think what I try to do with recipes is just like, well, there's a lot of things that I think about when I think about recipe development in general, but for people who are cooking at home, it's kind of like making sure that the recipe is something that's achievable, attainable, but he's practical in

Yeah, tell me about the cover because it's kind of a bold These are pheasants on the cover.

Yeah, I actually have the book.

Yeah, I'm holding it. It's a little bit of a bold cover because on the cover are some pheasants, which are beautiful, but you opted to have the feet stuck on there still, ye did anybody did anybody in cookbook try to warn you off that, like it was like too too much?

No, so they were very adamant that, you know, the cover of the book has to be something that says wild food and.

A bird's foot.

Well, you know, I actually posted a video of duck cooking dove on social media, and it's really kind of funny because people get real offended by looking at bird feet.

It looked like a lame ass book otherwise, but it's like too beautifully pheasant, not lame. But it wouldn't be like I wouldn't look, and I would look and i'd see like I don't know, I'd be like, oh, chickens or something. I don't have the hell i'd think, but your look.

That's part of the reason why I kept it on, is like you can see the it's a rooster, you know, it's not a farm raised pheasant. But anyway, so yeah, it's got.

Big old spurs. No, it's not aggressive, and I didn't mean to be lame. It's a beautiful book people picture, but like it's kind of just comes right out and says something to you know, with those trust pheasants with their their feet on there, it's it's it's.

Very it's yeah, there was a there was a topic of debate, and I'm very surprised that Penguin Random House they were all on board with it. I thought they were going to kind of have an issue with it of like, oh, no, this is really going to scare people off. But I think it also because of the way that it's styled. It looks more elegant, and I think it's you know, it's really common, especially in Europe, like people aren't afraid of seen feet on a bird.

Uh, you said it was seasonally. It's like organized seasonally. But how many recipes are in here altogether?

Oh, I don't know. I don't know. It's kind of well, you know, I started this, I had to cut a lot of stuff, so I don't remember how many actually made it. Over eighty I know that's that's like the ad Hier eighty And I guess it depends on what you consider recipe when you start getting into the back of it, where you've got like, you know, spice rubs and all those other kind of add on things in the back.

I love the the like I'm just looking at one here, like turkey with morels and asparagus. That's all the things we would have at that time. And to have a recipe that you can you just have these because you've been out in the woods and you have your turkey and you found some morels and you got asparagus in your yard. Like here's your meal.

That's awesome.

Yeah, you know.

I think that was important to me because I think anybody who spends a lot of time in the outdoors can relate to the ebbs and flows of each season. And I wanted people to pick up a season and get really excited about what you can find outdoors, because a lot of times you kind of just pick a recipe from from like whatever whatever you want to eat

Well, congratulations, man, it's gorgeous.

Thank you.

When I yeah, it's very beautiful. It's it's a really elegant and nice, really nice thanks, thank you. So everybody check that out. Me Eaters, Wild and Whole Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious Cook. Danielle Prue. This is your first book, Danielle. It is, Yeah, so this is all the like, this is all the recipes that really have a lifetime of creation into him.

Yeah, there's a handful of them that are like the tried and true recipes that I cook all the time that I was excited to put in there, and then of course there's tons of new things. But yeah, the first book, it's definitely kind of like my baby, sure.

Man, because it winds up being all your like mega favorites, going to going to a first project.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, It's it's odd. Whenever I was working on the book, I had so much time that it almost worked against me because I've reworked things too many times. And then once I completed the manuscript, it was like the brain pathway opened to creative output and it was just like it just kept on rolling. And there's like so many things now that I wish were in the book that aren't.

But number two, number.

Two, Yeah, Hey, congratulations on the new baby too, thank you.

Yeah, he's.

Nine weeks old, so.

Very much sleep.

So I'm not sure if the words coming out of my mouth are really making sense, very perfect sense.

And uh, you know, when we when we would when we were having our little kids, like I think at around nine months of age, this this grows people out. But at nine months age we'd start like we chew up deer meat and you just stick in their mouth that grows.

It's like birds.

We would do that, man, Isn't that weird?

You know, maybe it'll become a new trends to It's.

Yeah, we start giving them pre to deer meat, dude, they'd love it.

Just can't you just give it to them and let them chew on it too?

Though.

When they're real little, yeah, around nine months, I feel we start giving them deer meat and that would initially just kind of give it a little quick gnaw and then hand it to them just a little. These are kids are like mega healthy. Man. I don't know there's a hot tip for you.

I'll try that report.

Yeah, seven months to think about it. Yeah, all right, thanks for joining, Danielle. Appreciate you coming on. Congratulations on the book. Everybody check out. Yeah, this beautiful new cookbook by Danielle Pruitt.

Thank you, guys, Thank you, thanks saniel.

All Right, we're gonna have a before we dig in with with our esteemed guest Chuck Black. We're gonna have a quick check in with the with the junior Duck Stamp winner who's joining us in South Korea. What are you doing in South Korea?

Oh, I'm studying abroad right now because in the US I go to the University of North Carolina, but for our first semester in college, they sent us to Korea University to study.

So we've been having a lot of fun.

Here, got it. So you when you did the So you were in high school when you did the duck stamp. Yes, and you I'm trying to understand this right. You were in an art class where the teacher is so dedicated to the duck stamp contest that half of the junior duck stamp winners come out of this one art class.

Yes, that's true.

Whenever we have our ceremony for Oregon, it's just like half of the entire list is.

Just from our class. She's very passionate.

Wow, we need to get that teacher.

Out of there. So how many years did you submit?

Probably also like ten years. I've been doing this since I was like seven.

Incredible, You've been painting ducks since you were seven.

I mean I probably.

Wasn't that good at it when I was seven, but yeah, I've been going at it for like every single year.

It's like a tradition. At this point.

Huh do you think you're gonna keep going for uh as an adult? Once you got to enter the general competition.

I think maybe when I have time in college, I'll do it.

But I also I have heard that the adult contest is much harder than the Yeah, I can.

See that, maybe I can see true.

How old do you have to be to keep doing the Junior duck stamp?

What's seventeen? I think is the So it's like K through twelve?

Okay, gotcha? So tell us about the stamp there the painting you did this year for the Junior Duck stamp winner.

This year I painted a king ider and I've never actually like seen a king ider in real life, unfortunately, But I just thought the colors were like super beautiful.

And it is my last year doing the Junior Duck stamp.

So I wanted to do something really like bold, like confidence, like something special.

No, it's beautiful and it's a nice it's a really nice perspective devonnet And.

I got to say, they make so the winner is a judge at the Junior so they flew me out to be a judge. And it doesn't it does not do it justice like I thought, Emily's you.

Saw this, Yeah he judged so well. I thought you were to judge next year.

Then no, so one in September, and then the junior is in April.

Oh okay, so yeah, yeah, I think I.

Had her tied with another one that I liked, and then I.

Guess the rest of the judges pushed it over.

So really, yeah.

But it doesn't I want to say, it doesn't do it justice. I thought, like the colors really showed up in person.

Uh you know, Emily, I forgot to say you're I forgot to introduce you. Is is it lean? How do you pronounce your last name?

I believe it's Leanne?

Yeah, LeAnn. Okay, where did you go to high school?

I went to high school in Oregon at Sunset High School. I was kind of like in the Portland area.

Okay, that was our big marching band competition school.

Oh yeah, like that was your rival in marching band.

It was yeah actually oh yeah yeah.

I grew up in Vancouver, Washington, across the river, so yeah, yeah, throw it out.

Yeah anyway, so when you win, when you win the junior Duck stamp, is it just honor? Is there?

Like?

Do you win something.

I think there was like like a cash prize, but I think a lot of the experience was like being able to like go out to the ceremony and like meeting all the people. It was so cool and like meeting all the collectors is really special.

How much cash are you talking about? I could find it online, so it's not I'm not prime. A thousand you got a thousand bucks? What'd you do with it?

I probably spent it all on like food here already.

So you used to feed yourself. That's great, that's good. Use your money. So since you won, since you won the junior duck stamp competition, you finished high school in Portland, and then you enrolled in college, and you're in college now and you're going to college.

Where to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Okay, tar heels yep, yep. And then for your first semester they then send you overseas to South Korea to study. Yeah, that's right, all right, man, Do you have it? Do you have it in your mind that you now autit? You need to go see a king ider.

I think I might have to, like me meet the duck that.

I think.

Yeah, you honestly have to.

I think you should. And then uh, I also understand that this this struck me I picked. I always pictured that everyone that paints ducks, especially for duck stamps, likes to hunt ducks. You've never hunted ducks.

I've never hunted ducks in my life.

Do you have any desire to hunt ducks?

I think, hmm, I might.

I might have to try it out one day, actually, but I've never really had the opportunity to.

When you get back in the US, you can come if you want to come hunt ducks with us. You can come hunt ducks with us.

Oh really, this is an invitation.

It is like December early January will be the time you want to do it. I'm not joking. If you come up, we'll take you duck hunting.

She told me your favorite thing to eat is duck.

That's why.

You like.

You like eating duck, but you don't hunt ducks.

I had it last week.

There's a great way to get ducks. You want to buy a cookbook.

It's called duck hunting.

If you know, I'm serious. If you want to come out, if you want to come out sometime in December early January, just talk to Krin. We'll take you duck hunting. We'll show what a duck looks like. We'll be like, that's an actual duck king. We'll show you. We'll show you what a mallard looks like. Way, thanks for joining us.

Emily, Thank you so much.

What time is it where you're at It's one am.

It's it's almost two am now.

Yeah, man, thanks for taking the time.

Yeah, good luck in the future. I hope you keep painting. Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations, gratulations. That's super cool.

Thanks Emily.

Bye, right, Chuck, you ready to dig in?

Sure?

Okay? Can I ask you a question first about duck stamps. Wasn't it a thing like wasn't there some little uh like controversy recently where you're not allowed to have a person in Were they trying to make it a rule that you had to start having a hunter in the duck stamp? Is this? Do you know what I'm talking about?

It was a hunting element.

Which did that happen or not happen?

It happened, and I want to say it was two or three years that that was a requirement to put into your design, which I'm not opposed, but I think a lot of the artists, and I definitely felt similar were frustrated because it's hard enough to paint the duck and then when you have to try and compose it to make it all work with like a labrador in the background or floating.

Right and you know, and that's you know, and then that's what won.

But then I think there's controversy in that because that's not what we're supposed to do with Sportsman.

But it was painted. The painting was taken right before he picked it up.

Yeah, so I think the number of entries dropped a little bit.

That I didn't enter.

I entered once I tried that, and I didn't do it the following year, because I mean, it's it adds more time. It's hard when you're just complicating the design, and so I think a lot of artists advocated like, just let us do what we want and if we want to do a hunting element and yeah, So.

How many submissions do they get every year for the duck stamp?

Around two hundred And that's down a lot from the nineties, where I think the height of it was like twenty two hundred. Wow, But that was like that was like when the Fargo movie came out like that was like that era.

So you want to talk about fargo. Third, I was trying to avoid fargo, but you want to talk about fargo.

But yeah, I mean I think over the years and I agree. I mean, it's frustrating as an artist when there's so many top artists that enter it, and if you're a beginner or somebody that's not as advanced, I mean, it's frustrating to spend so much time on something and then it gets thrown out within the first round, you know. So the entries have just kind of been slowly declining and it's been focusing more on the top artists.

How do you submit?

You just mail it in with an entry feed check one hundred and twenty five bucks and then they have a public contest every year in September, so that's coming up not this weekend, but the next.

So that's it, yep. And then explain how the process of selecting a winner goes. So and when you submit it, how big you submit the original?

That's the original size? So it's a seven by ten inch painting?

Is that is that like the rule?

It's a lot smaller than I would have thought.

And I think logistically I mean they deal with two hundred entries. It's a it's a traveling judging every year. So I mean they I think there's only two people that run the Duck Stamp program. So shout out to uh, oh, my gosh. Now I'm like blank, and now I'm in the cameras that shout out to Suzanne and.

My gosh, I must look it.

Up for it.

I'm well, I should not forget this, and they're gonna hate me for Jen.

Suzanne and Jen.

Well, it's fine because you're in the hot seat right now. I know you just got off the phone with your future competition.

Yeah.

Sorry Suzanne and Jen. But there's them to run it, and so you know, two people run this whole thing and they have to handle all of these entries, and.

But they run it for the US Fish Wildlife Service.

Yeah, so they're employees. Yeah.

And then they pick five different judges every year, and they don't review who those are until I don't know, maybe a day or two before.

Are they usually are? Those judges usually went past winners.

No, So they're either like it could be somebody in an art profession, an ornithologist, somebody that works at du somebody that maybe is a like a former refuge manager. So it's always kind of like a you never know who it's going to be, but they're either bird experts, biology, art experts, things like that. And they choose five judges, and then they have the first round, which is enter out. So they go through all the entries.

So all they take all those two hundred paintings and lay them up in front of the judges.

They walk one by one and then they either say yes or yep, wow, yep, and.

Then they have a set number or is it just like that is the initial If there's one hundred people that they like, the one hundred are and if there's five they like five.

Or in yeah, So that that's the first round.

Is so each judge, which is you know, they're isolated from each other, they hold up an I ron oh, and if you've got three out of five ends, then you're into the second round.

And then the second.

Round I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I'm understanding. Yes, they're not able to they're not communicating no, so they're not influenced by right, understood, right, And so they they isolate the five judges and then each five judges is shown two hundred, and they allow they're allowed any number of in and out. Yeah.

Yeah, and so you just never really know.

It's not just the individual opinion of each judge. And so when you make it to the second round, then they score one through five score cards.

And if how many people make it to that round.

It varies.

I want to say, usually no more than fifty probably, so they yeah, they narrow it down quite a bit. And then I think you need to score a six fifty teen or sixteen or higher in the second round, and then that gets you into the final round. And then in the final round they can score three, four or five, and then top score wins. If they have a tiebreaker, they do a tiebreaker, and then that's how they narrow it down.

To the top three. Then what happens, that's it and they announce the winner.

Well you just said top three, Well yeah.

They I mean they always they always uh separate a one to two and three, I see, and they play second place there.

Yeah, and then there's like many people that might be tied for fourth and fifth, sixth.

But yeah, they want that comes out with the gold medal.

Yeah, they want like a three distinct top entries.

What are the parameters what are yeah, what are the parameters.

Of a duck stamp?

Like?

What is what? What?

Like?

Yeah, here's a pun what flies and what doesn't fly?

Well, you can't have writing, so it has to be and you have to have a duck that's alive.

I think it doesn't have to be a duck.

They picked five species each year and they rotate that so you know what's coming like three years out of three years ahead of time they announced like what each year will be, and so you get five choices and they try to rotate through all the birds. And I think the last one, which I think is eligible this year that's never made on a duck stamp is the cackling goose.

But yeah, so it's any migratory what waterfalller birds?

Well, but they narrow it, Sarah, keep going.

They narrow that when you do it. So for the for the twenty twenty four duck stamp, they said, here's the five birds you can paint.

Yes, and what were they?

No, forget it was the I want to say it was the black duck, the pintail.

Bluebell.

I'm forgetting now. But I knew, you know, I knew that I had to do the pintail when it When I saw that that was coming up a couple of years in advance, I was like, that's my year to enter.

So oh, because you're like a pintail guy.

Well, we had acquired the reference in that video you had seen, and so like I knew I had something good that I.

Could compose from.

And so I was like, when that bird is eligible again twenty twenty three, I'm going to enter because I've been missing a couple of years because it got to the point where you spend so much time on this. You're trying to make it as an artist, and so you're trying to balance like, well, what is really effective with your time? And to spend so much time on a duct painting and then have it get thrown out, which is normally what happens when I enter, you know.

It's difficult.

So I was being very picky about when I would enter, and so like, when I had the reference that I wanted for a pintail, it's okay, twenty twenty three, I'm going to enter again.

Now that you do, you get to is your original still your original? Yep?

See, as the artist, there's no cash prize, but you get to market your own collector prints and then you keep the original.

Well why don't you auction the original off?

Well, it is for sale. I just haven't gotten the price that I wanted yet.

Yeah.

Yeah, everything's for sale for the right price, right.

No, I don't want to I don't want to pry. But have passed dark stamp people had good Have they had good success selling the original? I would think it'd be a hot commodity, dude.

So the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, and that's where this year's contest is. They have I want to say, close to seventy originals. So prior to that they had, prior to their collection, you know, it had gone to whoever private collectors and then one man, Richie Praeger, he's been acquiring then the last I want to say, ten years maybe or so, and then he donated all of

But there's one there's an individual who's hot on it. There's an individual that buys a lot.

Yeah, he started the idea, do you auction it.

Through Southby's or how does it work? No, that's the real estate outfit who does all those paintings and stuff there always on the news.

Christie's.

Yeah maybe that often else, Yeah.

Like the famous art Christie's or there's another one Christie's and Sotheby's.

You'd be a really good episode we should do someday what we should get an auctioneer on mm hmm, and then we should ask that auctioneer, why do you sell? Like for livestock, talking real fast, but when they sell art, they don't talk fast.

No they do. They don't I have any art auction I've ever been to their talk really fast? Really yeah maybe, I mean I don't know. I don't know about the Christie's or whatever.

But yeah, those are like you drink wine and champagne and probably talk really.

Maybe the bigger the price, the slower they try to compute.

That.

Phil, I know you're in a bad mood. Yeah, let me hear it because I asked you like a very simple question earlier. Yeah, what's up, Steve? Would we ever be able to do we have the technological capability to you know, we do the auction house of oddities. Could we have an auctioneer come in the studio and do a live auction house of oddities with one of the fast talking auctioneers.

We could totally do that. We could, Yes, we should totally do a live stream prime time.

Get people pumped with with.

Yes, it doesn't get me pumped because I'm always trying to figure out why they're doing that, Why.

We can look into the history, Clay says.

Clay says, it just it just it builds exciting. But I always think you could just as well be standing there and go ten no.

Because it's like people will yell yeah, they need to.

They need to like get you, make you feel like the moments about the slip out of your hands.

They have the callers that are like, whenever somebody who raised their hands.

When we do this podcast episode we'll cover we'll briefly interview the auctioneer, ask these questions and then have a live auction house of oddities.

So, so are we going to get like one hundred people on on a phone call and they're all gonna raise their virtual hand? Is that what you're saying?

Or that's why I'm asking about the technology on it?

Can we figure figure something out?

Yeah?

Yeah, that's how they do a lot of the like art auctions, there will be a live audience, but then they'll also take online bid so you call in, you actually call in or I guess some of them they have like a like an eBay style like bid so you could totally do it.

Yeah, a lot of fun.

Man, No, Chuck, I don't want to cry. But are you I'm gonna leave this subject after this. So you have it? Is it up right now? Could people go on there and like bid on it? Or are you just trying to do like a private sale?

No, I mean it's I just have it. You have and it is for sale.

You're not in a huge rush. No okay, No, you didn't submit it to an auction house. No, no, no, no, no.

So it's if somebody wants to buy it, contact me.

No, that's kind of.

I got a I got a style question for you. No, pintails have a big long tail, hence the name pintail. Did you what was your idea to have it be that the pin that the tail collides with the edge of the painting, and that the bird doesn't have room. Well, yeah, why didn't you nudge him forward inch?

Because now I was worried about the spacing between the bill and the edge of the painting, and so I'm trying to like gauge, you know. And I looked at past pintail winners and some of them are just playing cut the tail off.

So I was trying to figure out how to fit barely the full.

Tail and you know, the whole bird within the painting without I guess, making it, you know, compositionally weak. So I was I just did my best to angle it. I wanted a little bit of space between the bill and the edge of the painting, and then so I just squeezed it in the.

Want to because because you want to have like, you wanted to have the bird really fill the frame, right, so it's seven by ten, and you wanted a lot of bird, and then you got this kind of bird with a weird.

Yeah, but it's hard, and you know, and from the side they have one of the longest side profiles, and it's like it doesn't really fit.

So you had to really shrink the bird down to include the big long tail coming out the back, right. Yeah.

And I mean now you're getting into all the nuances of like the artist's decisions. I have to make to try and.

I have so many questions about it.

Get a judge to you know, try to win over a judge.

Yeah.

Well, good thing you didn't do it flying, otherwise you would take up the whole thing.

Right, I mean?

Yeah?

And how tough? How tough was it to mail the did you hand deliver? You mailed the original.

Out, wrap it up like a you know, bomb proof and send it overnight?

How tough that?

I mean?

I'm used to it now. That's I mail all my artwork pretty much. So we've got to I have a system down to package for shipping, mailing the kid somewhere.

Yeah. It is stressful, very stressful.

Yeah, yeah, imagine. Yeah. I got in a big fight with Clay, our body Clay one time because we were looking at a painting and we were arguing about whether it was the morning or night mm hmm, so much so that we eventually had to go to the artist and he said it was night, which he like kind of messed up because it was actually the morning.

You wouldn't, you, guys, wouldn't.

The artist told you it was the night and you said he was wrong?

You were?

Like I think about that a lot too, Like if I have the sun coming from one angle and if there's a storm in the sky, I I mean most of the time it's coming from west to east. And so if you have the light coming from the right or whatever, and that would indicate like evening. But if you're the light coming from the other way, it should be you should be facing south.

And yeah, well these guys look to me like they're riding out in the morning. Yeah, Clay felt look like they're riding back home at night. And I was like, yeah, because if you're coming in at night, you know it. Just they didn't look like that. They looked like they were just getting going.

Yeah, So is this this morning or evening morning?

I was gonna say that's where I had.

Yeah, this is morning. Don't even try some bullshit.

So that the background of that is the Centennial Valley. That's the Red Rocks Refuge. But they only had a die cut for one way, so they had to flip the background on the carrier, so it's actually backwards.

You explain that to me again.

So the carrier, which is what the dollar bill sheet that the stamp comes on. The artists can design that, yes, and so the background you got to design.

This, yes, Yeah, So that was gonna be my question. So you win, and then you have to did you have to paint that after paint.

A whole another damn dark?

It's optional, but I mean, I'm not going to pass up with the opportunity.

So it's if you flip it.

That's the background that overlooks the refuge down at Red Rocks. And they only had a die cut where they could put the stamp on the right side, and so being that I put the bird, they had to flip it.

Yeah.

Yeah, man, you know what, now I feel bad because when I buy these, I always just peel that sticker off and throw that out right. Yeah. I never knew I was thrown out. I've never even looked to see that I was thrown out art.

Yeah, okay, I'll sign it for you now, now you'll hang on to it.

You sign that right now for me? Yeah? Yeah.

And another element of the duck stamp. Tell me about the remark on the back. So another part of the competition is the sketch on the back, right, And that's a different winner.

Yeah.

And that's Kira who is popular on TikTok and she started her duck stamp journey a few years back. And so they pick like a you know, different artists every year to do the they get highlight you know, like maybe up and coming artists or whatever.

So yeah, she did that.

Do you know any of the stats on on duck stamps, like how many? How many? You know? I know that they sell about a million?

Right, yeah, a million and a half.

And what are they charging this year? Twenty twenty five?

For it's been twenty five for I want to say, almost ten years now, hasn't Oh was.

It that long ago they raised it? Well, yeah, I remember everybody had a fit when they raised it. Yeah, but then it woant being that adjustment for inflation, it was still less expensive than when it was launched.

And they just surpassed a billion dollars raised in the program's history.

So yeah, and then and then like ninety percent of that goes the wetlands, right.

I think ninety eight percent of every dollar.

Yeah. Yeah, that's why you buy so many.

Max got to give it back somehow, sure, man.

Yeah, yeah, can you sign the Yeah, don't sign the fronts and it looks like you're the one hunting.

Yeah, I can do with that.

Yeah, tell me about the life of an artist, man like you don't just.

Do this, right, Yeah, I just paint.

No, I mean you don't just know, you don't just live to like paint your one ducky year.

No, there's more to it, no, I mean.

It's as an artist for me, well, like what art means to me is like storytelling. I think of it like conservation storytelling. So without the story, there's not a painting for me, like it, I have a hard time getting excited about the painting work. Like to me, that's the work part of it.

Yep.

Just being outside.

And experiences while doing all the things we love, that's what gets me fired up. And so now I've started to journal and that helps me, you know, like articulate the stories that I.

Want to convey.

M h.

And I guess that's like how each piece is born. And so I usually start with like an idea for a story. Then I'll try to like hunt for the reference that I need piece to like how am I going to piece this together? And then that's how like each painting starts to develop. So like I struggle with custom work, and that's why I don't do that anymore because it's I mean, it's it's.

A labor, you know.

And the only way that I can push myself through it is to really be excited about it, and so it has to have like a lot of personal meaning to me.

So with custom work, it just doesn't hit you, like you just don't know where it's coming from.

Sometimes, Yeah, I think there's like, from my perspective, there's like two types of artists. There's the artist that really gets excited about the art work itself and then all the you know, the way paint manipulates with different types of service surfaces and mediums and whether it's different drawing materials and you know, and they just love that work and so you ask them to do a custom painting, They're like, you're gonna pay me to do what I love so much.

And then there's.

The artist that I feel like has a true passion outside of the work of painting itself, and it's a lot hard for them to do something that doesn't like come from, you know, what's like natural to them or what they experience or whatever.

And so I feel like I'm more of the latter.

That's an interesting distinction. Yeah, how do you decide on what pose?

And did you at one point were you painting that from the very beginning. Is there more than one?

Do you do? You you wadded up.

And throw it in the trash and start over, or how did you decide on that? What's the process of doing that?

So it's changed a lot over time. I mean when I started out, it was very simple and just like, oh, I think this would be great, and then I paint it. I don't feel like I understood composition as much early on. This was the first stamp that I really took my time studying what makes our eyes attracted to certain things visually? And so I, you know, started studying like the Fibonacci sequence and that golden ratio.

Well, tell me what that is, they will fill.

Yeah, So Fibonaci.

He was a mathematician, I don't know, like fourteen hundreds or sixteen. I mean this is way back when, and they started to figure out that there was a sequence of numbers like zero in one equal two, and then two and one are three, and then three and two are five and five and three are eight, and they started to realize that this was their way of trying

Swirls snail shells a nail s yep.

And so they started to figure out that this was something that nature exhibited everywhere, and then artists caught onto that, like, well we should start composing our paintings that way. And that's when you think of like the old masters and like why were that era there was an error where artwork exploded and it was just you know, amazing compared

And like art academia and things.

So I started to study that and started to figure out like how to position the head of the bird, where to put it, different things like that.

And are you classically trained? Did you go to art school? No, this is all research You've done.

Yourself, right, So, yeah, like that have you heard of that before?

Yeah, it's art. You know, a lot of composing a painting is math. And the role of thirds for photography, like it's all just anything visual does take a lot of you know, compositional math. And I don't know if they teach that, and I didn't go to arts.

I think, I mean, I think it's pretty common knowledge. A lot of people know about this.

It's it's harder to implement than it is to understand it. And I mean because then you're there's just so many things when you're trying to paint a picture that come up that make it difficult. But yeah, like I really started to think about things like that, So, like back to your question. This year, I had like a very strict system of like Okay, I'm going to think about the rule of thirds, I'm going to think about where the horizon should be.

I'm going to do a large duck to keep it big so that.

I wasn't giving a judge a reason to vote it out, because sometimes you make too many. You may make a pair of birds and they become too small, and then judges might think, well when you shrink it down, it might not fit on a stamp. Well, so there's different things like that. So I'm like, I'm gonna keep it one bird, and I'm going to really study all these what art professionals considered, like the rules of composition, and I'm going to try my best to implement them all.

Really I have one more like nerdy art question and then I'll questions, so the how close in your reference material is the color theory? So like did you were you going off of the time of day and color or did you tweak the colors at all? Because I just so I really love to color.

I kind of make up the background colors a lot. That's just something that I really like to do. But that was also you know, if I'm painting a detailed picture, like the background of the carrier, I might try and use photos to follow what's true to life, you know, more accurately. But then on the stamp, I'm like, I'm gonna make him look like he's in a portrait studio.

You did a good job because the color really stands out to me, Yeah, thank you, gorgeous.

It does, and it's not you know, iridescent green like a Mallard's head or something. So it seems like it would be a challenge in itself doing like a you know, you got a white and then gray and then brown with that pintae.

Yep, personally, I think the pintail is one of the prettiest. Yeah, I mean, just with that chocolate head too.

Right, well, and then so what's funny, you know, and that's obviously that's like a lot of people's favorite bird. But what when I started studying like these compositional rules, that golden spiral that we talked about, it actually fits perfectly on a pintail's head, the way that the white swirls up into the head. And then I started wondering, I'm like, maybe that, like, is that part of the reason why so many people are attracted to this species

For me as a hunter, it was always like the golden goose egg that like, yeah, like pintails take a long time to fully plume out during the fall, and it's like all these southern states in the Western States

I think that you're maybe because it's like the duck stamp, but I feel like it's more it's more kind of conservative than your normal paintings.

It is.

Yeah, and they make you tone it way down, uh, not make you right you, I mean you can't have like you can't it can't be like loud and surprising.

Yeah, I mean you can take the chance, but that's Yeah, it's like a lot of times when you try.

That, that's the quickest way to get voted out.

So it's I don't know, but maybe some you just never know who the people are going to be. And that's these people that have been entering it since the eighties. I'll just tell you it doesn't matter how good it is, because you get one person that is like, well, I hate pentails.

My favorite duck is the spoon bail.

Yeah. That's because they could just they could throw you out for this arbitrary.

I mean that, Yeah, they could give you a one out of five just cut. I mean, so it's it's up to the end.

That's kind of a reason why they don't tell you who is the judges, right, so you don't paint towards their Yeah, favorites.

I don't Yeah, how did you find out that you won.

So they stream it live, so so everybody, yeah, everybody listening. Yeah yeah.

And so my wife was actually gone on vacation, so I was home alone and I'm just like sitting in my bed vacation. You're like, no, yeah, and uh so I'm just watching and and you know, I have made

I'm just like I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during this watching you.

Yeah, and then I want there was a two judge. There's I think just one judge that changed their mind in the final round and they switched his entry from like a five to a four, and that's how I won.

With that more guy changed their mind.

Yeah, Well, because like you know that from the second round score that they gave in the final round, they decided to take a point away.

So and then and that's when you knew that you won.

Well, then that was probably there's twenty entries to judge after that, so I had gotten the score and then his was like basically right after and I was like, okay, I'm in first now, and then there was there was still some entries that were one point off or something like that in the second round. So then you have to sit there and wait.

And then it comes doun like you just watching online?

Yeah, you can't go.

There, you can.

I couldn't make it work last year. I really wanted to. But yeah, so yeah, it was just a live feed on YouTube.

Yeah, and then what.

Was your celebration?

Yeah, were you like what that the panic attack?

Jumping?

Basically? Yeah, like yeah, did you break anything? I might have?

Yeah? How many people were watching the live.

Uh, there's always I want to say five or six hundred. Maybe maybe that's a little bit high. I don't know, but you call your wife. Yeah, well they all, I mean everybody was watching wherever they were, so like yeah, then my phone starts just going crazy and I'm like, I gotta let's get the call from them first, and then I'll talk to friends and family and.

Yeah, wow, that's so exciting.

Yeah so they called you, yeah, yeah, and what do they say? Congratulations?

Yeah, they assume you already knew. Yeah.

Typically, like it's I think the most artists.

Watch it now. That's kind of like a standard now. But yeah, it's pretty crazy, Like couldn't believe it at first.

So how much does how much does life change for someone that gets that level of recognition, Like it's got to cause a lot of people to come, you know, a lot of people to start paying attention to your wildlife art for a while, right.

You know?

And I yes, And you know, the biggest thing is just like the ability to network has been amazing and like meeting people and Ducks Unlimited and all these organizations and you know, creating new friends and connections and that's been awesome. And they, you know, they kind of have a tour for you. So you go to the Easton Waterfall Festival in Maryland. Then I got an opportunity to go to the like the big National Delta event down in Louisiana, and so just meeting people and networking that's

So it's funny because it's a piece of artwork that so many people will buy, and they'll buy it and they're like, oh shit, I gotta run and get my duck stamp, you know, sign their wallet, and yeah, probably many will probably not look at it. Yeah well, you know, I mean they look at it like a license, you know what I'm saying. They're gonna look at they look at it like a license.

And an art And now this is the first year that they have the East stamp. You've heard about this, so Congress passed I think in in May. So it's an E stamp, but they want it, you know, and I think the the Duck Stamp Office probably advocated for this too. They still wanted to have the physical as part of that aspect. So you buy the E stamp and then you get your physical in the mail in March, and that's so that you don't have an E stamp

I see, so they send it.

They will, Yeah, they will.

But I didn't know that that became a thing. The Arkansas the states to him, Yeah, I know. I mean, I don't mean what states aren't E stamps.

And I got to say that like general consensus, especially going to the Delta Expo. I mean, there's tens of thousands of people there.

It was very obvious that everybody wanted this.

So many hunters are like, thank god, we finally can just buy one on the phone now, and like there's such a pain to like sure, So definitely what the majority of hunters I think, if.

You decide you're going duck hunting at nine o'clock at night.

Right the next day and now nowhere to get I think that was the main reason.

You know, I'm gonna tell you. I'm going to tell you a duck stamp story. Remember earlier Max were talking about those rivers in Alaska, Okay, sitting at a launch one time, coming back from duck hunting in Alaska, and we're just loading the boat up and there's like a guy hanging around being like, oh, gee shucks, I never seen a duck right, And all of a sudden we're like shooting the shipping ball. Sudden he pulls his badge.

I got it.

I'm not supposed to have Anyways, that year almost got in trouble, but wound up not getting trouble because that year, like their Duxies and the Duxies in their opens early and the state stamp, something wound up happening. The state stamp was not available, was not available like fishing game and no one had the state stamp, and we looked and looked and looked, and they're like, the state stamps. Something happened. The state stamp's not available. So we went

Interesting, Now, were.

You sweating a little bit?

Yeah? Yeah, sweating a lot?

Yeah, I sweat a lot.

I felt that there would have been a big memo out to all the enforcement people saying that one it's that we opened the season yeah, with no availability of the thing, like you couldn't get it. Oh, I sweating and bad. That seemed like a bad thing to get in trouble for. And then it caused me to question like were you really supposed to stay home? Like it felt weird that it's like the season but you can't go because of So we just kind of felt like, well, when it's available, we'll buy it.

Hm. That's a tough one.

That's a duck stamp story. That's the only duck damp story I got for you.

I've got a couple of like not signing my stamp and then getting checked and like usually they're pretty good about like, oh, just sign it, right.

Yeah. So what we're talking about is when you buy a Duck stamp for you people out there that don't buy Duck stamps because you don't hunt ducks. One, if you hunt ducks, yeah.

To buy the damn stamp, you should buy it anyway.

Yeah, But the reason they signed it is they don't want you to be able to just lend your body your your stamp, So they wanted like signed across the face and that becomes your stamp. And you can't like swap stamps because there's nothing on that has your you know, doesn't like it's not like made out to your name. There's no serial numbers signed to you. So you you you graffiti the artwork, You defame the art work with your own.

Yeah, yeah, keep one for the you.

Know, always I keep all of the mine.

And I always thought about that because I'm gonna pass them down to my son and my grandchildren, and I thought about I should buy two, and then I thought now that if it was me, I would want one with my grandfather's signature, Yeah, So that's.

I talked to a guy that had every stamp that his grandpa he started hunting when the first year of the stamp came out, or he didn't start, but he had from nineteen thirty five or whatever. He had every

On the hill.

And then he's got it framed with him in the center, and then all the stamps all the way around people.

Such the coolest thing.

Yeah. Yeah, how avid of a duck hunter are you?

When I was a kid, I was, but archery has won me over year by year. So but I mean, I love to go. It's to me, it's like that's quality time with friends. And that's why I love to go.

If you know you get the chance, yep.

So you're not you're not like a super dedicated waterfowl.

Hunter, not so much.

I mean anymore, I'm thinking about how to fill the freezer the quickest way possible, and like, so that's I mean, that's always my first priority, which usually ends up taking the entire fall.

Yeah, cause you mean so you can have more time to get back to your painting, right, yeah, And then are you able to is that are you at a point where you just are an artist and you're an artist, you don't do any kind of other work. Nope.

I came here in twenty fifteen and just decided to go for it, and it's been a rough road, but I mean, thankfully the internet has kind of helped out over the years, and that's kind of been like the avenue to.

Your YouTube page is unbelievable. Oh, thank you with I mean thousands and thousands of followers. Yeah, but not to mention just hundreds of videos of just like the process of the painting and you actually did a cool painting behind the scenes of this stamp, right.

Right, yeah, like kind of like the background story yep, yep.

Yeah.

And I mean I started the YouTube because I had no money. I had like ran out first year I was here. I saved up what to do before.

Sorry, I was a I.

Went to school for wildlife biology, so I was a wildlife tech for majority of my twenties. In seven years, I saved up like fifty five hundred dollars doing that, which so they don't.

Pay a lot.

But I was like, all right, this is maybe like a year's worth to live off, and I went for it. And then of course I just flat out ran out of money, and then the YouTube was kind of like out of desperation, like, well, maybe I needed to like kind of do what Bob Ross did and maybe that

That's helped a lot.

If you took that head off with your hair, just go like.

That's what I'm waiting, No, not quite.

How would you describe your style and your work outside of the duck stamp paintings?

Like I said earlier, I think of it as conservation storytelling, So you're doing so, And I mean, like I never I never dreamed of being an artist growing up. It was always like I wanted to do wildlife conservation and so like anything that kept me outside around wildlife, just helping, that was what I was passionate about.

And still am.

And then through that, obviously I was entering the duck stamp and art was always an interest on the side,

To think about my artwork.

And then that you know a few years later, I won the Colorado and the California Duck stamp, and then that's when I was like, Okay, I got just give this a try.

Nice. Your pieces do have a really cool like narrative element where that includes all the elements like the landscape, maybe even a little human element like a barn and some of them, or like the obviously the wildlife. I love that narrative aspect of your work.

Yeah, got some examples, Yeah, I can put on the screen.

So that's a yeah, that's amazing that.

That's a close up of one. And then the next one, which was the canue birds.

Are in there just came max Is on it like the skies opened up.

Yeah yeah, yeah, so that's I'm not going to say what this painting is for just yet, but so those are kind of two close ups of the painting. But yeah, it's a guy throwing decoys.

Out that looks like a Terry Redlin.

Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, I definitely was heavily inspired as a kid, and now now I'm trying to figure out like.

How to how to find my own path.

And yeah, because I think, you know, he cared a lot about family, for community values, religion. It was clear and while you know, being in the outdoors and so he obviously accomplished a lot with that.

People still talk about it.

And I mean he got his own museum now.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I want.

To bad Yeah, very very cool. Yeah, yeah, I've heard.

Yeah, there's there's a mostly half done painting of some big Bolsheviks man.

Yeah, and I think the next one shows the full of what I'm working on.

So that's on the easel currently.

That's what you're working weigh on right now.

And you do so you do like an underpainting, Yeah yeah, and so you know, like the underpainting is a lot that's like the most common question is why orange and why brown?

And like, well, if you were to paint let's say, like a window and you held it up to a light, you'd obviously see the light.

Coming through it.

So you're not just seeing the paint, You're seeing what's bouncing off underneath. And the light that's coming back through it. So if it's a cold color or if it's white, it's going to change how you perceive the color.

So what you're talking about is chuck something about then how to describe it?

The underpainting.

Yeah, there's a painting that's half done. And then but but instead of having like a white, instead of painting on a white canvas, you go through and make it orange.

Yeah, And it depends what you're trying to accomplish. I really prefer like the warmth of that. But I mean that's like a cool nighttime scene. Some artists will want to do like a cooler color blue.

So there's paint for the painting.

You paint the canvas orange.

Yeah.

Yeah, Oh that's where I've gotten wrong all these years.

Start on white white?

Yeah?

How old were you when you made your first painting?

My mom has a finger painting framed from when I was like one and a half eighteen months or something.

Like that, so she says, I started early, Okay, when did you start?

For real?

It progressed. I don't know if I could. I started painting. I mean I progressed through drawing my whole childhood, and then the colored pencils, and then I dove into painting when I really got interested in the duck snap because I kind of, oh, no, kid, you know, because you know that it's like, well, nothing but color has ever really won post nineteen fifty or something. So I knew I had to figure out how to paint and how to do color if I wanted to compete.

So that I think it.

Was twenty years old, twenty one, and I decided to pick up paints.

Is this oil or acurlic?

It's oil soil?

Can you pick paying that picture over behind you? That's a work of art.

How many.

Ways can you paint? Like Kelsey said, oil, acrylic, there's watercolor.

Watercolor, gash.

Those are kind of the main ones. Yeah, Like there's not too many people, I don't think as artists.

Can you guys critique this? This is? This is a paint a picture by Clay Nuke. It's a future man?

Is that daytime or night time?

Mid day? It's a future man? Or the machine gun like some kind of future space alien or the machine gun he's getting charged by a wild hog.

That sums up my childhood artwork style.

Oh yeah, yeah, they're still hoping, so does if you if you didn't know anything about this artist, would you would you see a demonstration of raw talent or do you just see juvenile you?

You know, I think it's like a combination of an unhealthy obsession and persistence.

That ray bays in that picture.

I'm giving that a oh that's out when I was looking.

You know how little kids always have like what they draw. I would draw, uh, amphibious assaults, okay, And I would draw large large planes, Indian encampments. Oh so I'd do like a landscape, and then I would just fill it with teepees, lots.

Of around both men. You'll find one of those, and.

A signature, like a signature of my amphibious insalts would be I like to specialize in shattering glass. These amphibious vehicles I did had a window that was susceptible to an outward chatter for whatever reason, and that would denote like a certain amount of peril and gunplay happening, any amphibious assaults. But then I gave up on that, never did any more art done. Yeah, I don't know what was your thing when you were a kid.

It was I mean, honestly, it was therapy for me because I hated being in the classroom.

Huh.

I mean I grew up in a with parents that had me outdoors from the very start. My parents were competitive archer archers, and so they had a bow and arrow in my hands since I was two.

You were supposed to do that.

Yeah, and then uh, you know, like going on canoe trips to the Canadian wilderness Quetico since I was six, And I mean that's just what like I was infatuated with. And then when I got to like kindergarten elementary, I hated everything about it and I struggled in school. Like socially, I did not have a great time making friends, and so to get through my days, I would just fill my notebooks with sketches. And that's I feel like where

Yeah, and then and then it's like teacher caricatures.

I started to focus more on wildlife when I got to like middle school, high school, and I would start to hand them out to my friends. So like all the lockers of friends I had would have like my drawings in there.

And then I became known.

As like the kid that did caricatures of the teachers in the back, and yeah.

At what age were you known among your bodies as a like a good artist.

I don't think until probably college that I really started to progress with it, because I mean it was just something I did just to get through my days prior to that. And then I'll never forget the senior year in high school. You know, you have like an art class that you can take, and they had given the students the opportunity to just do whatever you want to do for your final project. And I did like some duck hunters and a blind or something like that, and

And it was actually, you're kidding me.

It was actually my mom's boss that bought it. But I mean that was it.

That was like, I mean, game changer for me. Because then I realized like maybe I could do something with this, and at the time it was like I'm gonna do it on the side. That was my spending money in college. And I told my dad, I think first year after college, was like, can I just try this over the summer, And He's like, in the first month, if you can make as much as I think you could make, like doing landscaping you did the year prior, like, I'll let you do it, you know, and you can live at

How I made, you know, I made.

Enough, and then that became kind of like the thing I did on the side ever since.

So, so you when you were little, like looking back on it, you had an artist meant you were like an artist without knowing you were an artist.

Sure, yeah, Like I was always attracted to it, whether I knew it or not. And it was never like super intentional, but it was just it was a form of expression. If I was a board, yeah, I just had to do something with my hands.

Yeah yeah. Uh. Now do you selling galleries or mostly online? If people want to go look at your paintings. I mean, you got an awesome website.

Yeah, think you.

I mean it's all online right now. And that has just been the result of you know, when I moved here, I thought, maybe this is a great place to get involved in the art community. It seems like it's, you know, like a thriving art scene. And of course I had my resume was I was a wildlife tech and I love to paint, and that didn't fly with anybody, so I could not break into the scene. But then that pushed me to to really go on.

You couldn't break into the art scene, yeah.

Like galleries or anything like does it not going to art school or what was the reason?

I mean, I think, I think. I think they do value of a resume a lot, for like in galleries, because I mean that's how they sell to people that don't know who the artists are in a gallery. I mean, they use It's not just a meritocracy, no, I it's it's.

Near impossible for a budding artist to just walk into a gallery and get picked up. It happens, but they're looking for people that have had success at a show or like a lot of galleries will pick up an artist that is has a career.

Rolling the gallery right right. I remember when I was starting out writing. I remember there's a writer that said to me, I don't remember what happened, like something I did or not. He goes, well, now you have like the stamp on your forehead.

Yeah, Like what do you mean?

He goes. You're like, you're now like, now everyone will take you seriously when you go to sell your work.

You need to prove yourself a little bit.

Yeah, He's like, but you can't. It doesn't matter what you write. You have to get up and get the stamp. Yeah, and then you're fine.

That's pretty much it.

But the damp's got to be there or else no one will even know. Your stuff could be great, but no one will know it because they don't see the stamp.

Yeah. This is literally a big ass stamp.

Ye.

But I mean that that led me to push online, you know, and that that that was twenty fifteen and so Instagram.

I was telling.

Kelsey that was like the first year that it really started taking off, and so I started getting traction on.

So when they keep talking about banning TikTok, you're sweating that.

I mean, I've diversified enough where I you know, and I know how to do it now.

Like if it's not that, and it's the next thing.

Those Chinese spying on your dunt painting?

Does this name graceful anticipation?

What's the anticipating Max Max taking Max jump shooting them?

So the story, like Max said, the video I posted of us going out and that back then, I was just I love fiddling around with cameras and so I was just gathering videos and of course I love to video birds and stuff too. So when we had found this drake on this small pothole walking out every morning. We set up on it on the last morning, and it was very evident after sitting there that morning that he would just be there right away at first light, and he would sit there and whistle shake the water

Wow, that's creative.

Yeah.

You know Kelsey has a gallery. Yeah, I know, studio gallery.

Yeah, I have yet to walk in.

Probably she might reject you, but maybe now ye stamp, maybe I am, but maybe I do have some space.

It's I mean, it's a tough balance because now I've established myself among many of of clients and collectors that I know personally, and I get the prices that I want. But then most galleries, if you do get in and they want fifty So then now how do you how do you juggle that? I mean, do you double your prices? Because that doesn't seem you know, very moral and so yeah, so it's yeah.

Do you have competitive terms at your gallery actually a broker relationships.

I moved the gallery away from a collaborative space to all my own stuff now, so it's yeah, it's it's back to just.

So studio galerries just you know this, Yeah, that's all just because you need more space.

No, it's just I found that I brought in a caliber of artists that deserved a different space. Like I'm in three fourks. It's there's not exactly a huge art market. When people come to my studio and my gallery, they're there to see my work, and I was watching these amazing works to get a little overlooked. And you know, we had some great success there with the other artists, but they just and many of them have gone on

And so studio a gallery as you can go, you'll be their working Yeah, yeah, and people can come see your work there. Yep.

I'm open, you know, five days a week, and I'm in there painting. You walk in, you see what I'm working on, and then you can walk through and see the rest of my works.

Pretty fun.

Yeah, that's what I need. I'm in a spare bedroom stuff.

Well, man, I appreciate you coming on the show, dude.

Yeah, thank you.

You know what, we were right when it came out in the news, like, I don't know the hell when would have come out in the news, late September. Right away, Yeah, Krinn and I were like, man, we should get the guy that the Montana guy that won the duck stamp. But then Krin's like, we should wait till people start buying their ducks, you know. So we actually talked about doing this back then, but then Krinn was pointed out

Great timing?

Yeah, like an artist who's trying to make it as an artist painted that. I'm gonna go get mine right after this dude fired up.

Now, Yeah, can I just give a shout out to the Junior Stamp contest because I know Karin mentioned it earlier. That's been a huge passion of mine because I'm sure a lot of your thought is how to bridge the gap and I think you've probably done a very good job at that between people that don't understand conservation and hunting and people that do, and how to, you know, how to connect with both audiences and the Junior Stamp. I got involved twelve years ago or so at the

And so they have the kids.

One of the big projects is they have all their students enter the Junior Duck Stamp and then they write a paper on the bird species they chose. And so that I work there one season at the Wetland Management District, and so they asked me, like, hey, would you know they knew that I was always entering the duck stamp,

Them to me like this whole packet.

Every year.

The teacher said that a couple.

Of them chose their final project or just write it on myself, which I'm like, well it's but like I'm just there one day and I'm showing them artwork and talking them about the duck stamp, and they just become addicted to it and like so this is a government sponsored program that very few people participate in, and the you know, when you think about how many classrooms and students are out there that is designed to do just that, bridge the gap and teach young individuals about conservation. That

Anybody can do it.

You can get the packet online and get started and you know, submit a painting.

We should have put that in the Kids Activity book Man Catch Crayfish count Stars. Should have had a thing like submit your duck stamp book.

Two.

You can encourage that.

Start kicking that one teacher's ass a little bit sending some kids over there to compete. All right, so you can't. You can't do one for three years? You got to sit out.

Yeah, twenty twenty seven.

Do you know what the ducks are for your twenty twenty seven?

I think they released this coming year?

Okay, yeah, starts gaming?

Yeah yeah? Are you gonna spend three years working on it? No? Do you live it? How long? So the next time you can submit, are you gonna limit yourself to how much time you can spend on it?

I had already started doing that just because I mean, like I said earlier, just the practicality of it. I mean, it's the end of the day, it's just a contest and a gamble, you know, you just put in and cross your fingers. So yeah, I mean, I I want to say I spent three weeks of like total commitment on this year's I mean, but I mean that's night and day, I mean seven days a week.

Yeah, how many hours? How many hours do you have into that painting? If you had to take a stab?

Uh, the painting itself was probably twelve days. But I mean that's wearing sweats and looking like cramp round the clock. So I don't know, twelve times ten twelve hours a day and then they're you know, the planning and actually going out and getting reference. I mean all adds up to a huge commitment.

Yeah, well paid off man, it did. Yeah yeah, congratulations.

You can't wait to see your next one.

Well deserved.

I like any kind of story about American elbow grease man, yep, And that's this is all about making a plan, like having a dream, working on it struggles, Yeah, overcoming all that ship.

Right, and it feels like maybe there's a chance.

There's a chance, man, there's a chance. I can tell you got Yeah, you're devoted. Thank you, you know, thanks for coming on the show with Shuck Black and Kelsey neanxt for coming on the show. Go pay Kelsey visit at Studio Gallery Three Forks, Montana.

I'm actually I have some stuff in the Mediator store now too, you do.

Yeah, man, I've been writing so much about Three Forks because we're working on the next Meat Eaters American History, which is the story of the Mountain Men.

Lots going on.

I can't get a paragraph without having to talk about Three Forks. A ton lot went on there. Yeah, God, the mono dudes just bit the dust around three forks.

Yeah, we were. We went on SETH and I went on a little walk the other day and we came across a little plaque about Colter's run, and there's just like pretty much everywhere you look, there's little things like that.

Oh listen, he a lot of dudes bit the dust around three forks, and not always in a pretty way. No, but what you when you're reading about Culter, what is often omitted is what happened to the guy he was with.

He got killed, right.

Not just killed, chopped up, and then Colter was smeared in his innards.

Oh god, sounds like a podcast.

Yeah, well it is. It's Media's American History The Mountain Book. Yeah you'll get the full, Yeah, brutal, the full on the bridge. And then there's a so check this out. This is a little preyler to so Media's American History the Mountain I'm working out now, but this is dude. So this one group of trappers is going up river, this group Mountain is going up river and one of the guys get second thoughts and bales and they take this this the head of this group of trappers takes

Go trap him.

He goes, catches up to him, shoots him in the back between the shoulder blades, hauls him back to camp. They say, you shouldn't have tried to do that. They stick them in the canoe and float them down river. He washes up dead downriver on the beach. Then his killer winds up dead, chopped up head setting on his horse in Three Forks.

Remember for that one. I'm just.

A whole big part of the story of the Mountain Men is them getting over like that era, them getting over the idea of the three Forks and moving south because Lewis and Clark when they came through, they saw so much. They spent a lot of time there and

Now there's a little art glory.

Now you go there and pay attention to go ahead, visit the studio. Lot's changed in the West.

Yeah, I guess.

All right, Thanks guys, appreciate you coming up. Go buy your duckt stamp yep.

Uh so no, we've got a day left. We're gonna do everything everything we can in our power to make this happen, all of us, everybody here on on the side. Like I said, it feels a little cooler. We got some cloud cover which was like the great day we had that, so really excited for tonight.

But let's switch gears a little.

Bit and get into Luke Comb's hunting and how it kind of ties into some of your music, and you know, you're starting to get more and more references in your song lyrics that you mentioned. It's becoming a bigger, you know, a piece of your life. You're keeping a and maybe it's too personal. This can get cut out, like keeping a diary for your kids, like just a hunting journal.

So what does honey mean to you? When did you start?

Kind of give us a little background on that and just in general.

Yeah, I really started, I don't know, I guess probably eight years ago now and have just been kind of have just become obsessed with it, you know really, you know obviously my you know, my what I do for a living is very sensory overload, you know what I mean.

You know.

It's something that I was naturally good at, and I really always believed in myself and my ability to do that, and and once I decided I was going to do that for a living, it seemed like I didn't really hit a lot of setbacks, you know, just the way my story kind of played out.

I'm very thankful for that.

I'm very lucky, but you know, I'm you know, we've talked about a little bit on this trip that I'm gonna just sawing a bit of a cold streak in the woods man like like the bull dropping. And you know, I've I've had some some other hunts that just kind of everything You do everything the right way and then it doesn't work out, you know, the way that that it's supposed to, And I mean even down to the you know, the eleventh hour.

You know, like I've had stuff recently.

Where I'm like, we're already celebrating and then it's it doesn't go away that you think that it's going to go. And so I've learned a lot through those experiences, right that that not you know, just because you do everything you can, and you you prepare the best that you possibly can, and you do everything you feel like the right way, and you're coming on these you know, public land hunts, and you know, I could probably afford to go do whatever hunt I wanted to, but I don't

You know what I mean, And you're gonna shoot that. It's like, I'm just not interested in that, you know.

So, but yeah, I keep that journal, man, and it helps me kind of and especially through this, through this kind of last year. I guess that's it's been really tough for me, at least big game wise, it's been. It's been tough for me. I've had a great Turkey season this year. I'm thankful for that.

I love that.

You know, Turkey Woods seems like the only thing that keep me coming back right now. You know, it hasn't been a lot of hasn't hasn't been a lot of good outcomes anywhere else. But I keep that journal really, you know, I me and my friends talk about it a lot. That I go hunting with you know, Dan and Read they have a podcast through Meet And I've been hunting with those guys for years and they're some

You know.

I wish I could go back and read all my.

Dad's you know, the days that he was miserable and the days that he was you know, that he got the biggest year of his life. I wish I could have all that stuff, you know, And so my wife bought me that book a few years ago for Christmas, I think around twenty nineteen. And just this Elkhunt's going to be the last pages of my first first journal.

That will be completely filled up.

Uh So I'm excited about about starting the next one and and hopefully we can get we can get.

Something done, and there'll be something good in the end of that one.

You know, we're gonna do everything we can. Mm hmmm mm hmmmmmmmmmm

Mm hmm