Nature Done Wright

Cathy Sheeter, artist in residence at the terrific Blauvelt Nature Art Museum, ace birder and all-around nifty person, was a Top Ten  finalist for this year's federal duck stamp competition — which is a pretty big deal. (That's her entry above.)

Cathy notes that although her  duck stamp entry is on tour for the next year, "I hope you will stop by and see more of my artwork (scratchboard art) at the Blauvelt Wildlife Art Museum (705 Kinderkamack Rd.; Oradell; 201-261-0012).

'The museum is open Wed-Fri 10-4 and Sat/Sun from 2-5. Please stop in for a visit!! You can also see more of my work here."

While you're there be sure to check out the feeders, which have been hosting a Red-breasted Nuthatch and Purple Finches of late.

An earlier post about Cathy and the museum is here.

Here's Cathy's account of the competition:

The federal Duck Stamp art contest is a unique one here in the United States. It is the only congressionally mandated wildlife art competition and has been running for over 80 years, making it the longest single themed stamp in the US. Each fall the winner for the following years stamp is selected by a panel of five people in front of a live audience in the three-tiered judging process.

While many people consider the Federal Duck Stamp to be a stamp “only for hunters,” certainly the million raised throughout the years should be regarded as one of the most successful conservation efforts for birds and wildlife across the United States.

Since its inception in 1934 over 800 million dollars have helped purchase over 5.7 million acres of habitat for birds and wildlife, all with funds raised directly from the sales of Federal Duck Stamps.

Ninety-eight cents out of every dollar raised from sold stamps goes directly into habitat acquisition. While hunters are forced to buy the stamp before they can hunt, birders, nature photographers and other naturalists are increasingly seeing the value of supporting this conservation trust by purchasing stamps themselves.

Habitat that is conserved for waterfowl, is great for many other non-hunted species as well, and most birders and naturalists enjoy visiting the federal wildlife refuges that these stamp dollars purchased.

My history with the Federal Duck Stamp contest goes back to my childhood. My father, a wildlife biologist, collected duck stamp prints and was a member of Ducks Unlimited. Duck art adorns the walls of the house that I grew up in almost everywhere that you look. Each year my father would purchase a stamp or a print to add to his collection. When my grandfather, who was a stock broker in New York City, passed away I learned that he too was a collector of federal duck stamp prints!

As my personal career as a wildlife artist evolved over the past eight years the Federal Duck Stamp was always on my radar, though my primary medium of scratchboard I felt would not do all that well in the contest as it looked “too different” from the designs that were submitted each year. In 2011 I picked up a paintbrush and learned how to oil paint and submitted my first Federal Duck Stamp. It did respectable, making it into the 2^nd round of competition. My second time entering was this year, this time in acrylics (actually my first completed painting in this medium!).

The stamp contest has strict guidelines. Only five species of waterfowl are eligible for the contest in any year. The four that do not win will advance to two years from now, plus one new species is added to the eligible list. Next year are five totally different species of waterfowl.

All entries must be 7”x10” in size and matted with a 1” white mat board. The artist is not allowed to sign the work, as who completed it is to be kept anonymous to the judges. Artists may make changes and resubmit works in future years when the species is eligible again.

The judging is done live over two days. Anyone is welcome to attend the judging and the judging is also broadcast on the Internet, so you can watch the judging live from anywhere. The judges selected each year range from artists, museum curators, biologists, ornithologists, and sometimes even notable public figures, so often quite a diverse group of individuals sit at the front of the room selecting the next stamp.

Round One involves each judge holing up an “In” or an “Out” card. Judges have partitions between them so that no one can see how the other person voted. Artwork that receives three or more “In” votes advances to the 2^nd round. At the end of this day of judging each judge has the option to bring back up to five works that they like that did not advance based on their In/Out votes. Those are generally referred to as “Call Backs.”

For the Second round of judging each judge has score cards between one and five, and they give a score to each of the works that advanced to the second round as well as the call backs. For the third round only the top five scores from the second round advance. This is often more than five artworks as there are usually ties for some placements. This year the top five scores from the second round ranged between 22-18, and included eight artworks.

With Round Three all scores start over from zero and for the last round of judging the judges only have score cards between 3-5 to use. The advancing works are shown and the work given the highest score in this round is declared the winner for the next year (irrelevant of how it scored in the 2^nd round). It is nerve wracking and exciting to watch the judging of your own work, as well as seeing how your favorites do.

Artists are not financially compensated for winning the Federal Duck Stamp contest, however they can make quite a bit of money from sales of prints, and painting remarques on plates of stamps. The winner is required to attend several nature fairs/festivals each year to help promote the purchase of Federal Duck Stamps. The top 20 scoring artworks also go on a year-long tour to various museums, birding festivals and nature events.

This year my acrylic painting of a pair of Canada Geese (my photo references were taken at a park in Oradell) only got two “In” votes in the first round, but was later called back by those judges to advance to the second round.

In the second round it actually did quite well ending up with a score of 17 points, only one point behind the top-five scores! So out of 152 entries, my work ended up tied for 9^th place overall!! A pretty exciting finish for only my second time entering the contest.

The winner this year was James Hautman, for his fifth time winning the contest, with a lovely painting of three flying Canada Geese.

For anyone interested in purchasing a Federal Duck Stamp to help support conservation, learning more about the contest, or to see where the works that go on tour will be at please visit: https://www.fws.gov/birds/get-involved/duck-stamp.php Entering these competitions is a lot of fun, and although I do not hunt, I strongly believe that the money raised by this contest is good for all wild things!

And if you have a child less than 18 years old check out the junior duck stamp contest as well!