UND graduate Chuck Black looks back on 2023 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest win
Oct. 27—GRAND FORKS — When Chuck Black graduated from UND in 2010 with a degree in wildlife biology, the idea of merging his passion for the outdoors and his passion for art into a career as a wildlife artist was only a dream.
The dream came true.
Black, who now lives in Belgrade, Montana, in September won the
2023 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest
with an oil painting of a northern pintail. The painting will be made into the 2024-2025 Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp — or "Duck Stamp," for short — which will go on sale in June 2024.
In the world of wildlife art, winning the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest is about as good as it gets. Sale of the $25 stamp, required for all waterfowl hunters, raises about $40 million each year to protect wetland habitat in the National Wildlife Refuge System.
"I'm still trying to process it all," said Black, 37, a Stillwater, Minnesota, native who graduated from Stillwater Area High School in 2005. "It was just disbelief — I couldn't believe it was actually happening. It was relief, joy and disbelief just wrapped in one."
Since winning the contest Saturday, Sept. 16, the magnitude of the accomplishment is finally sinking in, Black said in a recent phone interview. It was his 10th time entering the Duck Stamp Art Contest, a competition that regularly includes such renowned wildlife artists as Minnesota's Hautman brothers — Joseph, James and Robert — and South Dakota's Adam Grimm.
This year's competition drew 200 entries.
"It took forever for me to even feel like it was real and it actually happened," Black said. "It's just a very surreal experience. I keep saying that over and over."
Basically self-taught aside from a couple of art classes he took growing up, Black began doodling and sketching the natural world around him as a kid, often portraying days spent at the family cabin in Wisconsin or duck hunting trips with his dad to south-central North Dakota.
His years in North Dakota, both as a UND student and after graduation, working seasonal wildlife jobs in places such as Theodore Roosevelt National Park, definitely influenced him as an artist, Black says.
"That really opened up my eyes to, I would say, the beauty that exists in places I didn't really understand," Black said. "Growing up in Minnesota, it's very picturesque rolling farm country, a lot of woods and forest and agriculture. In my mind, North Dakota was very flat and boring and not much to do — not much going on. But then after living in Grand Forks, and then all the way to the opposite corner in Medora, it really started to open up my eyes to all the places and all the inspiration that's out there in places you wouldn't expect.
"The people in North Dakota to this day are still the friendliest that I've ever encountered. And so, the culture, the beauty that's within the state, everything has kind of moved me toward being more open-minded toward exploring different areas and different places like that."
Judging for this year's
Duck Stamp competition,
held over two days at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, was live streamed on YouTube; Black's painting was tied with two others going into the final round.
His wife, Erica, was on vacation and so he watched the competition at home alone — "just pacing back and forth" — before winning by a mere 1 point.
"My anxiety went through the roof — like, 'I can't believe it's working out like this,' " Black said. "I was the first one up in the final round, and I was given my score, and then I had to wait like a half hour for that last one to be scored again. So, I was just sweating buckets waiting to see how well it would do.
"It was such a relief."
Black attributes the win, at least in part, to a different way of approaching the creative process and focusing more on fundamentals such as composition and lighting. Knowing the northern pintail was going to be one of the eligible species for the 2023 contest, Black and his wife spent hours gathering video and photos of pintails in the marshes, providing the necessary reference imagery.
"I really like taking video because I think it helps to watch video back rather than photos," he said. "Photos can provide you with some of the smaller details, but I think you miss a lot of the bird's character and behavior and capturing it in such a way that it really represents that species well."
Featured in a 2013 Grand Forks Herald article,
Black had just won the Colorado duck stamp contest, while splitting his time between seasonal wildlife jobs in various places and working on his wildlife art. He won the California duck stamp contest in 2015, the same year he decided to move to Belgrade, Montana, and become a full-time artist.
"They have a strong art community, and I thought maybe it would be a good place to try and get my foot in the door," he said.
Winning the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest, Black says, likely will help allay any concerns family and friends might have had about his decision to pursue art as a full-time career.
"Not that there was a lot of pushback, but everybody wants to see you do well and be successful, and trying to pursue artwork in this manner is not always easily understood," he said. "I definitely had a lot of concern expressed by people I know, and so it's very validating and it feels really good."
The win already is opening doors, Black says,
"It's kind of cool to just see how big a deal it is from an outside perspective," he said. "Just the opportunity to expand my reach as an artist. I think that's the most important thing to me and what I'm looking forward to."
In that context, the best may be yet to come.
"I think as every artist starts out, a lot of it is just about the joy and passion of making artwork and being creative, and as I've matured through the years, I've really become interested in sort of the human relationship that we've built as a society with nature," Black said. "I'm really becoming interested in buildings and structures, things like cabins and ranches, and how those things relate to their surroundings and the environment and how to convey a story through all of that."
The story remains a work in progress, he says.
"I hope that someday, maybe through the creation of many paintings, that I can perhaps tell that story in enough depth and detail that it strengthens our understanding and appreciation for the wild and having that human connection intertwined in it, to kind of help paint that tale," Black said. "That's kind of my long-term hope."
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