Jack Russell Terrier made for Ted Littel from Columbia, Missouri. I sculpted Dall sheep, beaver, and elk fur to create the artwork.
I created this artwork for our daughter, Christa and son-in-law Chris Conkle because they adopt greyhounds. I painted the background using acrylic paints and then sculpted the greyhound out of pieces of caribou hide. I tried to make it look like Pazuzu, the first greyhound they adopted. The grass is moose hair.
Our daughter Cheri loves eagles and asked me to make her an eagle picture, so I created this piece of art just for her. I painted the background using oil paints and then sculptured the eagle out of pieces of Dall sheep and caribou hides. I dyed the caribou fur black and the eagle's beak yellow.
Canadian geese made for Maryanne McCauley from Fairbanks, Alaska. I sculpted caribou and Dall sheep fur to create the geese. The grass is deer hair.
I created this piece of art for Brian and Bev Vaartstra of Nampa, Idaho. The moose is larger than I normally make and the background was painted in oils. The moose was sculpted from a piece of moose hide, the antlers are pieces of caribou hide, and the grass is elk hair.
36 year old artwork, newly cleaned and re-sculptured in 2020, but not yet re-framed in shadowbox.
In 2019, I was contacted by Susie Hokkanen of Homer, Alaska. She inherited a large piece of my art from her mother, who purchased it in 1983. she said she loved the artwork, but it needed to be cleaned. She emailed me a picture of it. I was happy to see that after 36 years of hanging on a wall, it still looked pretty good. However, there was a thick layer of dust on all the furs and some of the animals were a little messed up. I told her I would be happy to clean it and re-sculpture the animals so they look like new. In fact, I explained that they would look better than before, because I have improved my sculpturing techniques over the years so that my animals look even more realistic. I also told her that I would re-frame it in a shadowbox, covered with glass, so that the artwork would never get dusty or messed up again.
When I first started making and selling my art, I did ot put all of my pictures under glass, because people loved to feel the furs and "pet the animals." However, after several hears of watching them collect dust and get messed up from people touching them, I realized that the only way to protect my art for future generations was to put all of it under glass. That way it will stay clean, beautiful, and bring people a lifetime of enjoyment.
Same picture as above, now in a shadowbox frame, covered with glass to protect it.
