EP 558. Chasing the Million Dollar Duck—and Life

“Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. In the studio today is Mr. Adam Graham from South Dakota. Listen up, guys. Three-time Federal Duck Stamp Champion.”

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. In the studio today is Mr. Adam Graham from South Dakota. Listen up, guys. Three-time Federal Duck Stamp Champion. Three-time champion. Won his first one when he was 21 years old, the youngest ever. Great story about duck hunting, about family, about duck stamps. Adam, how the heck are you today?

Adam Graham: I’m well. Thank you for having me.

Ramsey Russell: Man, we’re sitting on Zoom looking at each other, and I’m sitting here wondering. Boom. I just turned the recorder on. You’re sitting in South Dakota right now, and I expect you to be bundled up warm. You’re wearing a short-sleeve shirt. I thought you all would be cold up there in South Dakota right now. Or is that just that thick Nordic blood?

“I’m not outside, so that makes a difference. But it is funny because I just was out in California on a duck hunting adventure with my son, and the guy that picked us up at the airport, he lives out there, well, it was like 60 degrees. We were out in T-shirts. We were like, this is almost like we could find a swimming pool, it was so warm. He just laughed that we were in T-shirts. Everybody else had jackets on, were chilly. So I guess that whole ‘what you’re used to’ kind of plays a big factor.”

Adam Graham: I’m not outside, so that makes a difference. But it is funny because I just was out in California on a duck hunting adventure with my son, and the guy that picked us up at the airport, he lives out there, well, it was like 60 degrees. We were out in T-shirts. We were like, this is almost like we could find a swimming pool, it was so warm. He just laughed that we were in T-shirts. Everybody else had jackets on, were chilly. So I guess that whole “what you’re used to” kind of plays a big factor.

Ramsey Russell: Was that your first trip to California to duck hunt?

Adam Graham: No, it’s my third now.

“California is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever hunted in the continental …”

Ramsey Russell: California is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever hunted in the continental United States of America. Next year I’m going back. I hunted Sac Valley and some of those different areas last year. This year I want to hunt up north toward Klamath, and I want to make my way all the way down to the Salton Sea. It’s such a diverse and amazing resource for waterfowl. Number one duck-killing state in America. I get along with those duck hunters out there. They’re my kind of people. I love California. I’m going to raise both my hands up. I do not like cold duck hunting. Everybody says, “Oh man, it’s gotta be cold. We gotta be breaking ice.” Go to California, go to Mexico, go to Guatemala. You ain’t lived until you’re shooting ducks in short-sleeve shirts or long-sleeve shirts and getting a tan while you do it. That’s my kind of duck hunt, to be honest with you. But the problem is, in Mississippi when it’s nice weather like that, we don’t have ducks, to speak of. What about South Dakota? You live in South Dakota. What was your season like this year?

Adam Graham: We did okay. Winning the Federal Duck Stamp this year threw a big wrench into everything because that kind of upends your life. We had other stuff going on too. It was just a chaotic time. I did get out some with the kids, and a friend of mine from Ohio came out and visited. We did decent on the ducks. For a Christmas present for a couple of my kids, I ended up doing a trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts to hunt eiders and other sea ducks. With my son, as I mentioned, we went out to California and had an awesome hunt out there as well. All in all, we still shot a lot of ducks this year. Just not as many of them were in South Dakota as in other places.

Ramsey Russell: What is it like hunting in South Dakota? It’s been a very long time since I hunted in South Dakota. I went up there with a college buddy and we shot ducks in the morning on public and pheasants in the afternoon. It’s very difficult for a non-resident to get a license up there because you have to get drawn. I think the application period is in June.

Adam Graham: Yeah, it’s like mid-summer.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. When the last thing you’re thinking about is going duck hunting in South Dakota.

Adam Graham: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: We had a wonderful time. We found a $5-a-night campground around Lake Andes. Looked beautiful. We pulled in wondering why it was vacant. We found out the next morning when I woke up and my teeth were chattering. It was cold, the wind coming off that lake. We skipped the first morning hunt. We went to town and bought a heater and a bunch more blankets and everything else. Then we went hunting and had a great time.

Adam Graham: What state are you from?

Ramsey Russell: Mississippi. Born and raised in Mississippi.

Adam Graham: I will say what you’re more used to makes a big difference. You’re acclimated to those colder temperatures. Coming from somewhere warm to somewhere colder, I mean, you’re going to feel it. We still feel cold, don’t get me wrong. But when we moved to this town, which is Wallace, South Dakota, a little town of like 90 people right in the prairie pothole region, it’s a beautiful area. When we moved into this house, it was February, and it was snowing. It was snowing hard. We had the doors propped open because we were carrying stuff in and out of the truck. We were trying to hurry because it was cold. It was snowing so hard. I had duck hunting gear on. So did the rest of my family, hauling stuff in and out of the truck. Meanwhile, I see these two little kids on bikes come riding down the street. The little girl has shorts on.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Adam Graham: Shorts. I just remember thinking, wow. I guess people are just tougher up here.

Ramsey Russell: That little girl ain’t from Mississippi, I can tell you. My wife just reminded me, when I was in college, we froze to death at Lake Andes. Shot ducks and swans. The first time I went to South Dakota, I wanted to go pheasant hunting. I was dating my wife. It was the first road trip we’d ever done. We went up there and hunted with somebody around Lake Andes. Not somebody I’d recommend you all hunt with. He ran over my shotgun barrel and bent it that morning. It was fun. So we were going goose hunting. He had a ground pit blind dug out. After he’d run over my shotgun barrel, it was bent, you could see it bent, I had to shoot the snow a few times to figure out I had to hold the gun about three feet high to hit decoying birds. But I figured it out. Came back home, replaced the barrel, and have since sold that shotgun. It’s a fun place to hunt. But the thing about South Dakota, and here’s what I’m asking you about duck hunting in South Dakota, it’s a fly-through state. It’s a production area. Then those ducks leave, and you all are catching birds kind of staging, coming through on their way south. How does that change your approach to duck hunting into water fowling as compared to, say, California, which is wintering grounds?

Adam Graham: Where we live, we’re in the prairie pothole region. People call it the duck factory. We’ve got birds here all summer. The birds that most people are waiting for down south, they’re here from early spring through summer into fall. We’ve got shovelers, wigeon, pintail, green-wing, blue-wing, gadwall, redheads, canvasback, ruddy ducks. They’re all right here within a mile of our home nesting. It’s pretty incredible to see that. To see the little baby ducklings in the middle of summer of the different species. It’s cool that it’s not just mallards and not just wood ducks but these other species as well. Growing up in Ohio, we only ever had mallards, maybe wood ducks, and Canada geese. That was pretty much it. Seeing these other species is pretty exciting. Early season, they’re here in good numbers. The problem we face sometimes is if we get a cold front that’s cold enough to push some of those birds out, sometimes it takes a little bit before we get new birds pushing in.

Ramsey Russell: I see. So you grew up in Ohio, then you’re not from South Dakota?
Adam Graham: Right. My wife and I both grew up in Ohio.
Ramsey Russell: Okay.
Adam Graham: And so you might ask, well, how did you end up in Wallace, South Dakota? It’s funny because, when my dad and I first started coming out here duck hunting, oh, I don’t know, I mean, years and years ago, I guess I must have been graduated from high school, but it wasn’t much after that. It just blew us away how much better it was hunting here than in Ohio. We tried hunting in Ohio, but it was, I mean, there were hunts that you wouldn’t even see a duck the whole day. And so coming out here, we were shooting our limit almost every outing. We had our choice of hunting spots, and it was rare we even saw other hunters when we were out. That alone makes a huge difference, getting hunting permission and everything.

So after my wife and I got married, I went on a hunting trip out here with my dad again and was just talking with her about it. She actually said, “Well, what if we went and looked at houses out in South Dakota?”
Ramsey Russell: Why did she want to go to South Dakota?
Adam Graham: She just thought I was so enamored with it. Maybe she wanted to see it. I couldn’t believe she was willing to consider moving out here.
Ramsey Russell: Yeah.
Adam Graham: But I kind of jumped at the chance. I was like, “Well, yeah, I mean, we could go take a trip.” So we made a road trip out to South Dakota, looked at different places, looked at houses, ended up finding a house on an acreage, and we bought it. We pretty much just uprooted our entire lives to move to South Dakota. It was really because of the hunting, and the people, I would say. I mean, the people, not that there’s not great people in Ohio, but I’ve never met people as friendly as what we have here in South Dakota. Just salt-of-the-earth kind of people. If you need anything, they’re just a phone call away. It’s pretty amazing to have that. Where we moved on the acreage, my wife wanted to continue her education with college, and the college in Vermilion, South Dakota, offered a doctorate program in what she wanted to go into. After we lived down there for a couple of years and had our second daughter, her priorities just kind of changed. She decided, “I think I just want to be a stay-at-home mom and raise our kids and maybe even do home-schooling.” It just shocked me because I’m thinking, well, I was counting on you making all the money. Anyway, I was like, “Well, let’s just try it.” So we went with it. But we lived there for like, boy, like 12 years. I love, again, I love duck hunting. That area is not a duck hunting area in the state. It’s just not very good. There are only a few public hunting areas, and some years those are just bone dry. I told her, “Madison is old enough.” She was going to be turning 12. I said, “She really wants to duck hunt, and it kills me that we live all the way out here in South Dakota, and yet we’re not in the part of the state that even has ducks.” We drove around and scouted, trying to find somewhere, and we ended up setting up on a stock dam. That was it, what we could find. So my wife said, “Well, what if we look at moving again?” I’m thinking, oh man, it was a lot the last time, right. So we ended up moving to Wallace, South Dakota. People ask, “Well, how did you end up moving to Wallace, of all the places?” I tell them, “I drew a bullseye on a map,” and I told my wife, “I want to live somewhere in this area,” which is the northeastern part of the state, commonly referred to as the Prairie Coteau. We ended up coming up to this area and looking at some places. My wife ended up finding a house up here, and I was gone on a hunting trip. She called me and said, “I think I found our house.” I was like, “Oh really? Another one, huh?” Because she kept finding places she thought would work, and they just weren’t working out. But we ended up, my dad and I stopped at this house on the way home and looked at it, did a walk-through, and I looked at the price, and I was like, Man, for the price, like I just decided to make the offer, and I gave them asking price. It was very affordable. And, man, we love it. It’s great. So, literally an hour after I had seen the house, I was putting in the offer. I called my wife and said, “I’m giving them asking price. I don’t want to miss out on getting this house.” And we got it.
Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. I want to circle back real briefly and ask you, you grew up in Ohio with your dad. What was your childhood like? How did you get into hunting?
Adam Graham: Yeah, sure. So the hunting really happened, I don’t even really remember. I just know my dad always hunted. I remember him bringing deer home and seeing them as a toddler. When I got old enough to care to keep up, I was going out with my dad. I had a little BB gun I would carry along, and I’d shoot at leaves and different things. I was out with him, walking the woods, walking the fields, and it just became a part of me, a part of my life. Even when I would come home and go to school, it just seemed to calm my mind to take a walk out in the fields behind our house and just be out in nature and be out there alone. So that stayed with me. And then the art, I always loved doing art. It just seemed like the two started to come together over time.
Ramsey Russell: What sparked your interest? You know, how and why did you become an artist? What sparked your interest in art? And why ducks?
Adam Graham: That’s a great question. So for me, I always liked to draw, even from my youngest years. My mom said when I was like two or three, I would sit and draw for like an hour every day. None of my other siblings did that, so she kind of noticed, like, wow, he really has this attention span to sit and work like that. I would just sit and watch TV and draw. I ended up watching Bob Ross on PBS, everybody knows, the guy with the afro with the happy trees and things. I remember watching him thinking, I think I could do that.
Ramsey Russell: I want to draw happy trees.
Adam Graham: I just felt like watching, I felt like, I get it. I feel like it’s something I could do. That Christmas, I actually asked Santa Claus for a set of oil paints, and I got them that Christmas. So it just kind of spiraled. It’s funny, my dad worked for the gas company in Ohio. No art background. He did woodworking, he was good with his hands with stuff like that. But my mom had no art background. They had no idea what to do with this boy that liked to draw, but I also liked to hunt. I think that made my dad feel better about everything, because your son’s an artist, that might be a little weird.
Ramsey Russell: You know, if your son’s an artist, you sometimes worry he’s going to grow up and have an afro and paint happy trees.
Adam Graham: That’s a possibility. I probably have the right kind of hair for it too, if I let it grow out. I just really wanted to paint the stuff that was inspiring me, and that was nature. Those outings, hunting, I would experience something really awesome, see something or get the idea for something, and then I’d come back and want to try to paint it or draw it. When I was 11, I did a drawing, and my grandfather, so my dad’s dad, my grandfather saw the drawing. He was always impressed with my artwork, but he told me, “That’s good enough. I’d really like to have that.” I was, “Oh, here,” and I was giving it to him. He said, “No, no. That’s good enough, I think I should pay you something for it.” I was like, whoa. When he said that, it kind of blew my mind. I had never really thought about it from that point of view. I think he paid me like $20. I think I was only like 11. That was pretty exciting for an 11-year-old to get $20 for doing something I enjoy doing.
Ramsey Russell: What was that painting and where is it now?
Adam Graham: It was actually a drawing I did of a tiger. Of course, I hadn’t seen one out in Ohio in the fields. I was watching some documentary thing and ended up doing this drawing. I’m not sure if my parents have that or if I have it. I’d have to look. My grandmother had it and passed away, but my grandfather passed away years ago. For years he was my biggest fan. I remember thinking, I wonder what else Grandpa would like. Because I’m thinking, boy, if he’s willing to pay me something for some drawings, and he did. He bought a number of other drawings after that as well. I started going to shows, craft shows. Not the kind of shows you would think someone doing art would set up at. I had an invitation from a teacher at the school. She had a table. She said, “If you’d want to come and set up at the table and set some of your drawings out, you could do that.” So I did.

I sold everything. I sold everything I had. I took about 30 orders for other drawings. These were only like 10 or 15-dollar drawings.

Ramsey Russell: And how old were you then?
Adam Graham: 11.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Adam Graham: And my first, like, duck-type show was the Ohio Decoy Collectors and Carvers Association. I think I was 13 when I set up at that show for the first time. I was just a little kid, and I had my drawings out on the table, and I would sit in front of the table and actually work on drawings while I was sitting there. It was so funny because people would come walking up and be looking at the drawings, and then I’m sitting right in front of the table, so they had to literally walk around me. I remember getting looks like, “This kid’s just in our way here.” Then they’d say something to my parents, who were sitting behind the table, and ask them if they were the ones that did the artwork. But very quickly, I became kind of a known exhibitor at that show. And I still do that show to this day. Actually, it’s coming up. If anyone wants to come see me at that show, if they look up odcca.net, all the show information comes up, and it has the show dates, which is in March, the middle of March, and it’s in Independence, Ohio. But that’s one of the few shows that I still do. When I go back to that show, it’s like I know everybody because I’ve been going there for so long.
Ramsey Russell: At this point, when you were at that show for the very first time, drawing those drawings, your mom and dad behind the seat, were you focusing on waterfowl only then or were you still just doing all wildlife?
Adam Graham: Mostly waterfowl. And it’s funny because people ask me, “Why birds? Why waterfowl?” It’s an interesting story. I’ve always been really impressed with waterfowl, with birds in general. We would go on family vacations growing up. We went to the desert southwest, we went to the northeast, and so we’ve been a lot of places. And I had a bird book. It’s actually this bird book right here.
Ramsey Russell: Oh yeah, well, I’ve got the same book.
Adam Graham: Yeah. Most people are familiar with it. And this is the actual book. The pages are worn and tattered, the binding’s kind of falling apart. I don’t know if you can see that.
Ramsey Russell: What’s that book? Is that Golden Book? Golden Guide to Bird Identification of North America. Go ahead. Yeah, I’ve got that same.
Adam Graham: I had this book since I was a little kid. I would look through it. When we traveled, I remember just studying the birds that I might get to see on those trips. I was in that book so much that I got to where I knew all of the birds in that book, even all the shorebirds, the gulls, all the ones that people have trouble with. I don’t even remember them all now, but at the time, I knew them all. I still remember people would flip the pages and cover birds’ names and quiz me, and they just couldn’t believe that I actually knew all of those birds. So when we traveled around, it was so cool to see these different birds. Well, in my parents’ backyard I had seen a bird that I didn’t know what it was, and that wasn’t very common for me. I liked birds enough to where I was pretty confident, especially with the birds in our area, that I knew the birds we had around. It was some kind of a woodpecker. To this day, if I had to guess, I actually think it was some kind of a hybrid woodpecker. I still remember it. I remember looking at it with some binoculars, thinking, “Wow, I’ve never seen a bird like that.” I wanted to find out what it was because I thought maybe it was something from somewhere else I’m not familiar with. I couldn’t find it in this bird book. Then I went to the library and got other bird books. I started going through those, and I couldn’t find it in any of these bird books. Some of the bird books had beautiful photos instead of just little coloring pictures. In the process of looking for that bird, I ended up really discovering the ducks. I remember looking at the maps where it showed where these different ducks lived, and I was like, “Wow, we have these ducks here? I’ve never seen these.” I said something to my dad about it, and he said, “Well, you know, I think you can hunt a lot of those ducks.” I was like, “Why haven’t we ever gone duck hunting?” He said he was into deer hunting and squirrel hunting. He said, “Well, let’s go try it.” So we went out, and it was something that we, a venture that we went on together. Neither of us had ever really duck hunted. I had never duck hunted. He had shot some geese years ago, not serious waterfowling. We got into it, and we just loved it. I think the thing that we loved the most was that we didn’t have to worry about scent and noise. We could sit in a blind together and visit. If we had birds suddenly coming, we could get tucked in and not move, and the birds would come in. It was really an awesome experience. But just being able to spend that quality time with my dad, it was special compared to deer hunting in a tree stand by myself.
Ramsey Russell: Do you remember your first duck?
Adam Graham: I do.
Ramsey Russell: What was it?
Adam Graham: It was actually a drake wood duck. I had seen some but had never gotten close enough to shoot one. I ended up setting up on a little creek. My dad, I think, was deer hunting at the time, not that far from where I was set up trying to get this wood duck. I was waiting. I just thought, “I’m just going to sit here and not move along this creek and see if anything comes in.” All of a sudden, these wood ducks came swimming up from the other direction. I didn’t expect them to come from that way. When I saw them, they saw me, and they flushed. I just snapshot with the shotgun, and this drake folded up. Beautiful bird. Beautiful. I couldn’t believe I got one. I was so excited. It drifted down to where I had to walk through about 20 yards of the thickest briars, prickers you could imagine. I remember them ripping at my clothing, ripping at my skin. But I made it through. I got to where this wood duck had drifted down the creek to the point where I could pick it up. I picked it up, and it was so stunning. I just had never experienced that. When you pick up a freshly killed bird that’s a good bird, it’s like the life isn’t all the way gone yet from those feathers. It’s unbelievable. A freshly killed bird, when you pick it up and the feathers are just hanging there, it’s something that’ll stay with me forever. Seeing that bird, and a wood duck is about as pretty of a duck as you’re gonna find, I carefully got that thing out of that spot. I was so careful with it. My dad asked, “Well, do you want to get it mounted?” I said, “Yeah. I mean, I can’t just clean this bird. I’ve got to get this bird mounted.” So we went to this taxidermist and talked to the guy. He seemed great. Left the bird there. When I got the bird back, it didn’t look like my bird. It was, but it was not the same. It was a terrible mount. The back was swaybacked, I don’t even know how you do that to a bird. I’ve actually dabbled in some taxidermy, and if you know what a bird looks like, I would think most people could get it closer than that. It about killed me. I remember going home, repainting the bill, which was not painted well. I did the red eye ring around the eye, which I don’t even think he had. I repainted the feet. I did everything I could within my ability to make it better. I regroomed the head, the back feathers. So anyway, had that duck mount for about 10 years. Then I remember one day the whole back half of it just fell off.
Ramsey Russell: Golly, that’s terrible.
Adam Graham: It was terrible. So anyway, I’ve gotten better mounts since then. But I know we talked a little bit about this. You asked why I have some of these birds mounted that I do. For me, I look at the birds, people always laugh. Like, out in California, if I shoot a beautiful drake pintail, and I mean it is just something to behold. When you’ve got a late January drake pintail with a pin like this long, it’s like, wow. Growing up in Ohio, we never even saw pintails in the places that I duck hunted. It was so exciting. For me, it’s kind of a thing, kind of like a little token to remember the hunt and everything by. But when I look at those birds and I look at those feathers, for me, the ultimate artist created this bird that I’m holding in my hand. All of my art pales in comparison. I can never capture it the way God created these things.

Ramsey Russell: No, it’s funny because I’ve got some great taxidermy. There are some really gifted bird taxidermists. They specialize in that stuff. You see all them birds behind me in the background picture, I’ve never put my hands on a taxidermy bird, I don’t care who mounted it, that looked like it did picking it up out of the water and it being perfect or in flight or sitting. It’s not the same. There’s no bird taxidermist on God’s earth that can recreate the hand of God.

Adam Graham: No, no, I fully agree. And I try with my art. I mean, that’s what I’m setting out to do. I know that my artwork falls short, but I strive, I strive to get there, to capture the birds in a realistic, pleasing pose with a good composition, good use of lighting and color. Those moments I have out in the field, that’s the stuff that really drives me and drives my passion. Seeing those birds in hand, seeing them in the air the way that they can fly, I mean, it’s the thing that keeps all duck hunters coming back. I’m blessed that my job is something that I can focus on that has to do with that, with my passion.

Ramsey Russell: Do you have a favorite wildlife artist yourself?

Adam Graham: You know, it’s a tough one to nail down because there’s a number of great artists out there. Some of my favorites I can tell you, I mean, Dan Smith is always one of my top guys. He’s a super nice guy but also a tremendous artist. Carl Brenders, Robert Bateman, Bob Steiner, the Hutman brothers, there are so many out there, and they’ve all played an influence into the way that I view art, the way that I view what’s possible. What I set out to try to do, like I said, is to capture things that I find pleasing out in nature and to be able to share that with other people.

Ramsey Russell: One of my favorites has always been James Audubon, from way back when. You were talking about picking up that wood duck, and this is what crossed my mind, I love his photos. I love his drawings. I’ve got a few around, just reprint-type stuff. I was having dinner the other night in Nashville, and a friend of mine’s got, he must have a dozen of them on his office wall. I had some of the same prints, the pintail, the shovelers. And we got to talking about it, and clearly, I mean, it might be a trio of pintails chasing dragonflies, but just the shape and the structure of their body and the way the wings were dropped and the pose clearly, every one of his drawings, which I love, but clearly every one of them was drawn with a dead duck in front of him. He would take those ducks, and he’d kind of pose them. He’d try to give them life in his drawing. But he was a naturalist, not just an artist. He was an artist, but he was a naturalist. He came over to North America and began cataloging the new frontier all up and down around the country, just finding these birds and cataloging them and drawing them and monumenting them for posterity. But clearly, they were dead ducks that he had gone out and shot and posed and tried to give them life through his drawing, to put them in their natural surroundings. And the question that I’ve got along those lines for you is, how has hunting influenced your art? How, since you were a young artist going to art shows, and then going out, getting a book, and learning about all these birds and seeing all these ducks, and then going out and putting your hands on that first wood duck, how did that shape or direct your career as an artist?

Adam Graham: Yeah. When you see something that miraculous in hand and you’re looking at it, I mean, as someone that likes to do art, how is that not going to influence you? How is that not going to excite you and get you to want to try to capture that or paint it? Wildlife is one of the best proofs that we have of a Creator. And so when I look at the beauty of these birds and I look at the intricacy, all the little vermiculation, all the iridescent colors, it’s just unbelievable. And so for me, I want to try to capture it and share that with others because so many people are constantly just on their tablets, on their phones, even driving, they’re just tunnel-visioned down the street. They’re not looking off to the sides. I’ll do a painting of a drake wood duck to the best of my ability, and people will walk up and they’ll see it, and they’ll stop and say, “Wow, that is a beautiful duck.” And I’ll say, “Oh, thank you.” And they’ll say, “You painted that?” I’m like, “Yep, I painted that.” And they’ll say, “Well, I gotta ask you, where do those birds live?” And I’m kind of shocked because wood ducks are pretty much everywhere. I’m thinking, you’ve never seen a wood duck? I’m floored. But I think back to when I was a kid and I had never seen a wood duck up until I found them in the bird book and we went out to these places where they have them. So I tell people, “You’ve got to go to some of these areas to see them.” I’ll tell them specific locations if I know the area. Like in Ohio, I mean, I was back from South Dakota, but I was at this show not far from where I grew up, and I said, “Yeah, you just need to go over to Sandy Ridge Park, and there are these beautiful water areas. Go early in the morning, take your time, move slow, and take some binoculars, and you’ll see some of these birds.” It’s always rewarding when the person returns the following year and says, “I went and I saw them, and you’re right, I can’t believe I never had seen it.” I always think, like, if you could color,  I mean, I do a lot of coyote hunting too, and I always think, if they were all blaze orange, there are way more of them out there than what you know or that you notice because you just don’t see them. They blend in so well. Well, a wood duck, when you get back from a wood duck, 50 yards or so, you really don’t see all those colors. They look dark. They have the squared-off tail. I can ID them readily in flight, but the beauty you see when they’re in hand is a lot different than how they look at a distance. That’s why I tell people, if you don’t have a pair of binoculars, you might notice that there’s some kind of duck, but you’re not even going to know what kind it is if you don’t know the birds well. But yeah, you do a painting of one up close, where I am painting every little feather, little crease in the bill, the little crevices around the eye ring, when I’m painting it to that degree, for whatever reason, it makes people just stop and really look harder. And I think it’s because they realize that someone actually spent the time to paint it. And so if I can help bring greater awareness to some of God’s creation through my work, then that’s pretty satisfying.

Ramsey Russell: And likewise, the question I’ve got is, how has your art influenced your hunting?

Adam Graham: Huh. Well, I’ll tell you this, there’s rarely a bird that comes back to the blind that I’m not looking really close at. Because every bird to me, there’s a uniqueness to each bird. I notice things, I notice differences in plumage that most people would kind of just gloss over. I’m sure that to some hunters, I’m probably kind of annoying because I’m looking at the birds so much, they’re just wanting to focus on getting more. Just like out in California, I’m going over these birds, deciding, “Okay, I think I want to take this bird back with us to mount.” I just want to have a handful of really good specimens. As I mentioned, I kind of want to try my hand at taxidermy, and if I can practice on really good birds, it’s better than practicing on pin-feathered birds from South Dakota. I was saving some, but the people that live there, I don’t want to say they take them for granted, but I know that if I lay the birds on this table where this guy Chuck comes in to help clean the birds, if I lay them on the wrong table, within a matter of moments he’s going to have the wings hacked off, the feet chopped off, he’s going to be working on butchering these birds, plucking them and everything. And so for me, I couldn’t even imagine, it would seem almost like a crime to take some of these birds that are so perfect and just see them torn apart, ripped apart, without at least taking the time to really appreciate their beauty beforehand. So I’m real careful about what birds I move over to the cleaning table because I don’t want to see one of the good ones hacked up right away if it’s a bird I might want to keep.

Ramsey Russell: I’m looking over your shoulder to that Gadwall, and most people just call them “gray duck.” They’re a dull gray bird at a glance. But if you pick them up, and I think that’s a great example of, I’ve kind of got a feather fetish. They mesmerize me. And a nice, mature drake Gadwall like that, with his, first off, that kind of squared crown of his head, and then his chest, it looks like an artist took an ink pen and did some kind of calligraphy to it. You move down to the flank feathers, and the vermiculation is just very fine and delicate. And you spin it around and look at it, it’s amazing.

The uppers with that cinnamon, the gray wings, the white underbelly, very distinctive in flight. But boy, those nice little drakes get that butterscotch tertials that lay right in that gray. I mean, gosh, the artist that drew that bird and put that bird out and put that bird in the air for the first time, God, I mean, my gosh, what an eye He had for detail.

Adam Graham: It’s a master of subtlety. I talk with other artists frequently, and I always tell them, there’s the detail stuff, but sometimes the real beauty is in those subtleties, the things that people overlook. And for a Gadwall, you’re right. People call them a gray duck. It’s like, well, you look at them up close, they’re really not gray. At a glance, they are, because you have the blacks and whites that kind of meld together to make that visual gray color. But man, they are stunning birds, stunning, with that red on the wing, the blacks. I look at it and I see, when I look at it as an artist, I see the artistry of a designer in that bird. And it’s all of these ducks. And it’s not just the ducks, it’s pretty much all wildlife. You can see it, and it’s stunning. And so to paint a Gadwall is a huge challenge because you’ve got to really be able to capture the form apart from the patterning. It’s a tremendous amount of work. I’ve painted them several times. I actually came in second place in the Federal Duck Stamp Contest one year with them. It was funny because at the end of the second round, I was in first place with a Gadwall. And I mean, you look at the other species in that contest that year, wood ducks were eligible. There were a number of ducks that people would consider more pretty than a Gadwall, and there weren’t many Gadwall because, they’re, you know, why paint a Gadwall when you could paint a wood duck? But I painted this Gadwall to a level where it got a lot of attention. The beautiful light, he was kind of a single drake, kind of reared up, the beautiful patterning on the chest. Everything. They are a beautiful bird. And in the third round, which is always the final round, I ended up losing to Joe Hutman’s wood duck by one point. But still, to get that close against the Hutman Brothers and wood ducks, I felt like it was still a big accomplishment to paint a Gadwall to that level, where it still got some recognition.

Ramsey Russell: So you talk about the duck stamp. That’s going to bring me on point for just a little bit. And just for anybody listening that may have never seen a wood duck in the wild or has really no idea what the Federal Duck Stamp is, other than something you have to have to go hunting, let me give you a summary. It’s a conservation program that funds wetland habitat preservation, waterfowl, and other wildlife. It was established in 1934 under the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act. It’s required for all hunters age 16+, but it’s also bought by collectors, bird watchers, and conservationists. The present price is $25. I think it ought to be $50 or $100. 98% of all proceeds go directly, are earmarked directly, to the National Wildlife Refuges, specifically for land acquisition and conservation. Since its inception, it has raised over $1 billion and has protected more than 6 million acres of wetlands. It is an annual art contest. The Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest is the only nationally recognized wildlife art competition in the United States, with winning artwork featured on the stamp. That’s what he was just talking about. And it supports not just ducks, it supports hundreds of other wildlife species that rely on wetlands, to include us, humanity. And now that we’ve broached the subject of the Federal Duck Stamp, when did you first start getting into this competition, Adam?

Adam Graham: So I actually learned about the contest. There was an NRA magazine called Insights, and on the cover of this Insights magazine, they had a painting by Bruce Miller that had won the Federal Duck Stamp contest that year. It was of a canvasback, I think it was like 1994. I remember seeing it and just being so in awe that someone actually painted that. That was when I first learned about the Federal Duck Stamp. I remember thinking, like, wow, that’s what I want to have as a goal, to try to win that someday. Then I found out there’s a program called the Junior Duck Stamp contest that is for kids, grades K through 12. I ended up entering that. The best I ever did was fourth place nationally, and that was my junior year of high school. I actually ended up missing the deadline my senior year because they changed the deadline dates, and I didn’t know it ahead of time. After that, I was able to start entering the adult contest. The first time I entered, I got 16th place. The second time I entered, I got eighth place. Then the third time, I won.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. You were 21 years old when you won?

Adam Graham: 21, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Your first of three Federal Duck Stamp wins, which is kind of a pretty big deal now, Adam. You were 21 years old, the youngest ever. What was it like winning that, and how did it shape your career? Let me ask you this,

Adam Graham: Yeah, go ahead.

Ramsey Russell: When you won that, had you decided at 21 years old that you wanted to be a wildlife artist as a vocation, or were you thinking, man, I think I’m gonna be like my dad, I’m gonna get into my dad’s business, and I’m gonna paint on the side? At that point in your life, were you on the path of being a full-time, 24/7 wildlife artist, or were you just still kind of playing with it?

Adam Graham: Well, no, I was on that full path. I mean, growing up, there were three things that I really wanted to do. The first one was wildlife artist. The second one was, I wanted to be a fighter jet pilot, I remember. And the third one was a martial arts instructor, I wanted to have my own dojo because I was pretty into that for years. But I remember thinking, like, well, I feel like the art is something I can do as I’m older, whereas the other things might get harder. So I decided that was what I wanted to do. Like I said, I did my first wildlife art show, which was the Ohio Decoy Show. I was in my early teens, and I went and did that show every year after that. And, man, it just grew and grew. I was making good money. I was treating it like a job. In the summertime, my parents said, when I was like 16, they said, well, listen, you either need to go get a job or really treat the artwork like a job. I was like, okay. So I treated the artwork like a job. In the summer, I would get up every morning and put a tablecloth on my parents’ kitchen table, get out my paint stuff, and work on paintings. Then I would clean up everything when it was supper time. I remember both of my sisters had jobs at McDonald’s, and I was making more than both of them combined doing the art from that early of an age. So it really drove me more and more. The other thing that drove me was people’s support. I would go to that show, and people would see my artwork, and they would say things to me like, “Well, I’m gonna buy this so that one day when you’re famous, I can say that I have one of your drawings.” I remember thinking, like, oh man, I really gotta work hard and actually make a name for myself now because they bought it believing in me. Now looking back, I realize that’s just something people say kind of sarcastically to a degree, but I took it to heart, probably because of the age that I was. And that really helped drive me at the time.

Ramsey Russell: So what was it like after you’d competed and got eighth place, then third place, then second place with a gadwall? I mean, my gosh, how many hours do you think you had of your life tied up in that gadwall?

Adam Graham: Oh man, so I don’t clock in and keep track hours.

Ramsey Russell: But if you had to guess, 40 hours or 400 hours?

Adam Graham: That was Oil painting, and I probably spent two months painting it, and that’s painting like a full-time job.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. Like Ricky Bobby said, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” So you won second place, two months of your life, and you come second place, if you ain’t first, you’re last. So what was it like winning, and how did it shape your career?

Adam Graham: The first time I won, I mean, I knew it was a big deal, but I didn’t realize how big of a deal, because I had never won. I had never won even a state duck stamp at the time. So winning the federal right out of the gate, I mean, that was pretty major. I remember fielding phone calls from 8:00 AM to about 5:00 in the evening all day, every day for like two weeks. It didn’t back off for like two weeks. It was just constant interviews, reporters. But I mean, I was the youngest to ever win, and that was a major news story. People that had been following this program for all these years, like, it’s rare that someone young wins.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the average age of a winner?

Adam Graham: The average age is probably like 40s or 50s.

Ramsey Russell: Guys that have been painting for decades, that have been painting since they were little boys.

Adam Graham: Yeah. I mean, Jim Hartman had the previous youngest-ever winner age, and he was, I think 24 or 25 when he won. That record had stood for years. So when I came along and beat that record, that was a major thing. I did articles, it was in pretty much every major newspaper, every hunting magazine. I still remember, it was so many interviews, and it was so great. I mean, it launched my career right out of the gate. Had I not won, I don’t know that I would be doing art to this day. I have no idea.

Ramsey Russell: What year was that, or what species did you draw?

Adam Graham: So I won it in 1999. It became the 2000, the Millennium Year, Federal Duck Stamp. It was a drake mottled duck.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Adam Graham: You’re familiar with those?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, of course.

Adam Graham: The Gulf Coast. Yeah. So there were only two species that had not yet been on the Federal Duck Stamp at that time, the black scoter and the mottled duck. They wanted to get those two remaining species on it. So the year that I won, both of those two species were eligible. Usually, there are five eligible species each year, and you can choose from those five. So it was pretty cool being able to have that opportunity to paint one of those species, which everyone thinks, well, they’re kind of the ugly duck species. But a mottled duck still looks a lot like a mallard or a black duck, which people are familiar with. So I ended up deciding to paint that because at least they look kind of like a normal duck. I made the painting more about the lighting on the bird than the bird itself. So yeah, people can go back and look at the 2000 Federal Duck Stamp, and it’s a drake mottled duck raising up, flapping its wings on the water, with some golden sunlight coming through the feathers. That painting changed my life. Winning the contest for the second time was a big deal because it solidified my first win, that it wasn’t just a fluke. That was exciting to get a second time. Also, the second time I won, my wife and kids were now part of my life. None of them had ever known me as the winner of the contest. They knew that I had won it, but I didn’t even know my wife the first time I won the contest. So it was exciting for her to be able to actually see me win. I remember I won it on her birthday. So that was kind of a cool thing too, kind of got me out of having to do a big birthday present that year. No, I’m joking.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I think you were on a documentary that I saw, it’s still on there. And everybody listening who has not seen Million Dollar Duck, go take a look. I think it’s on Netflix, is where I watched it.

Adam Graham: Yeah, I know it’s on Amazon Prime.

Ramsey Russell: I just remember seeing it on one of the streaming channels, and it was amazing. Because winning it is a huge deal. It’s not until you see it that you realize how competitive it is, how well kept up this art world is, and what a big freaking deal it is. Almost like, Ramsey’s take on things, you can be an artist hustling and working full-time jobs in the studio all the time, painting and painting and painting, doing commissions and going to art shows and trying to sell some stuff or you hit this lick and you got a duck stamp, and all of a sudden it’s like, wow, I can breathe easy as an artist. I can kind of sort of breathe easy. Talk a little bit about this Million Dollar Duck. I think you were featured on that show, were you?

Adam Graham: I am.
Ramsey Russell: Talk about The Million Dollar Duck.
Adam Graham: So it was kind of a wild thing. I mean, my wife and I, we were living on the acreage down by Vermillion, South Dakota, still. And we were having some money trouble at the time.
Ramsey Russell: I mean, is it fair to say you were a starving artist like a lot of guys.
Adam Graham: I mean, we weren’t starving, but we were having some tough times. The economy wasn’t great, and the income off the art was just so-so. It had been quite a few years since I had won the first time.
Ramsey Russell: Were you having to work odd jobs besides just doing your art? Or were you able to just stay in the studio?
Adam Graham: I was working a lot of hours painting, and I was selling my work for cheaper than probably what I should have, just to make the sales. At least there comes a point where you’d rather have the money than the artwork because you’ve got bills coming in.
Ramsey Russell: Did you have kids at the time?
Adam Graham: Yeah, I had three kids.
Ramsey Russell: No pressure, nothing.
Adam Graham: No. Right. And I was the sole provider. My wife was homeschooling the kids. I was making payments for our mortgage, insurance, all these things. It’s like never-ending. So it was stressful. For me, it’s not just like, oh, it’s a fun hobby, let me try to paint a duck. It’s like, I need to win this contest to be able to keep providing for my family. And I had actually had conversations with my wife about should I look at trying to find some other kind of work. I didn’t know what to do. It was stressful. When I’m painting a duck stamp, I am putting everything I have into it, and it’s really difficult to see the contest come up and your painting get shot down or come in second place. Because like you just mentioned, there’s no prize for second place. You might as well be in 20th place. It really doesn’t make any difference. So that was always a big struggle. My wife would see me working so hard for so long, and then I’d enter the contest, and they’d have these five random judges up there, some of which, sometimes aren’t even qualified to be judging. You’re watching it and seeing good paintings, not even your own, but other good paintings, getting out-voted in the first round. It’s just such a crapshoot. My wife was almost opposed to me even entering. She’s thinking, why are you putting yourself through this?
Ramsey Russell: It’s stressful, isn’t it?
Adam Graham: Very stressful.
Ramsey Russell: So non-artists, the judges aren’t comprised necessarily of art majors or art experts. Do you ever feel like, are they looking at, oh, that’s a pretty duck, I like the wood duck better than I like the gadwall, he’s a prettier duck? Do you ever see that kind of bias?
Adam Graham: Absolutely.
Ramsey Russell: Not so much the technique and the art and what you’ve learned, but just, oh, that’s a pretty background.
Adam Graham: So the year that I won the second time, the one judge, we couldn’t figure out how she was scoring. It just wasn’t making any sense. Usually, you can kind of tell, like, okay, that guy really likes wood ducks, or that person seems to like the more realistic paintings. We couldn’t figure out this woman. Watching two-thirds of the contest, I had no clue how she was going to vote from painting to painting. At the end of the contest, I was actually in attendance, and I heard her tell someone, “Could you tell I wanted one of the pretty red ones to win?” So that year, cinnamon teal and canvasback were eligible. I swear it didn’t matter if they were good or not.
Ramsey Russell: Red touched her, man.
Adam Graham: Yeah, so when it’s that random, it’s pretty defeating. I always say, if someone asked, like, if I asked you, hey, would you be a judge for the women’s figure skating in the Olympics,
Ramsey Russell: Heck no.
Adam Graham: You’re shaking your head no. Why would you not want to do it? It’d be really fun. We’d feed you some meals. You could vote for whichever one you like.
Ramsey Russell: I’ll tell you why. Because I got asked to judge, and I greatly enjoyed doing it, I enjoyed going to the show up there in Eastern Maryland. I got asked to be one of the panel of duck judges for the World Live Duck Calling Contest. I knew some of those guys. I now know a lot of them. And I can call a duck in. I can kill a duck with my call. But I was sitting there on the first round thinking, who in the F-bomb am I to judge every single one of these people up here that are Leonardo da Vincis with a duck call compared to me, a meat hunter? I mean, no way am I qualified to judge these people. Even in the pressure. I’m like, who am I to judge these people? Everyone’s a winner in my book.
Adam Graham: I think the same thing. So I always wonder, I can’t believe these people decide to say, yeah, I’ll do it. Because the pressure, man, you’ve got people putting in months’ worth of work. There are several hundred paintings in that contest every year. You’re going through, voting out or in, or giving a low score or a high score. And yeah, are you qualified? If I wasn’t qualified to judge something, I wouldn’t judge it. I’ve been asked to judge the decorative decoy competition for carving at the one show, and I’ve done it, and I actually got a lot of good response. That’s something I feel like I am qualified to judge. I know bird anatomy. I feel like I was pretty qualified for that. But to judge something that you don’t know, I don’t know. It’s just how it is, and I’ve got to operate within that. So I always try to do, in my head, a painting that I feel like is at a level that it can’t be denied. Like, if it doesn’t win, I want to hear people saying, “How did that one not win?” That’s my goal going into it. And I’ve had years where I didn’t win, but I heard from people I really respected, like maybe one of the Hautman brothers or someone else, and I’d hear their comment that “I thought that one should have won.” And that means more to me, not money-wise, but it means more to me than the judges picking it. Because that’s someone that I know really knows what they’re talking about. And for them to have that comment means a lot.
Ramsey Russell: I remember somebody telling me one time, because, you know, I’m sitting here looking at a few waterfowl paintings around the house, like a DU print, and they’re big, poster size. But these little submissions are what, about 8 by 10 or smaller?
Adam Graham: 7 by 10.
Ramsey Russell: 7 by 10. They’re tiny.
Adam Graham: They’re tiny. It’s like this big. You’re putting everything you have into that little 7 by 10-inch painting. The painting I did this year, I spent a little over a month on it. I’m working in acrylics now. Acrylics are faster, and I can get pretty much the same results with the acrylics as I got with oils. The first two times I won the Federal, I painted those in oil paints. This last time, I won with acrylics. I’m not sure anyone has those statistics, but I might be the only artist to ever work in two completely different mediums.
Ramsey Russell: What does winning mean? The name of that documentary, Million Dollar Duck, is it really a million-dollar deal? I guess you win a prize when you win because they’re going to monetize it through sales, and then you’re able to spin it off into coffee mugs and prints and all kinds of stuff. I mean, it really is a financial windfall. I’m not trying to get into specifics. I’m just saying it is a blessing.
Adam Graham: It’s potentially, right. I mean, there’s no prize money.
Ramsey Russell: I did not know that.
Adam Graham: Yeah, it would be great if there was just 1%, if the artist could get 1% of the sales of the stamps, that would definitely boost the interest and excitement in the contest. Because having a guaranteed windfall is a big deal. If you win, you’re going to have a pretty good chunk of change going out in printing costs, advertising, making flyers, all of those things. Doing shows, before you ever start getting any money coming in.

Ramsey Russell: What did you, did you have to come up with, I mean, I’m sure a lot of them phone calls were people saying, “Hey, let me license your print and put it on some stuff.” But at the same time, you go from being an artist sitting in a studio painting a 7 by 10 or painting this art 24/7, seven days a week in your studio all day long, a full-time job as an artist, to now all of a sudden, “I gotta be a businessman and figure out how to monetize all these licensing agreements and get some money coming in.” Wow. I mean, what kind of shift was that at 21 years old?

Adam Graham: Oh, it was very difficult, and I had no experience with it. So the first time I won, I actually had a guy publish it for me that was a very successful artist in his own right, and he published my art, my painting, and then I had a contract with him, and I made a percentage. And really, it worked out because he had so much knowledge and experience with how to make the most off of the program. And so, you know, but the program is not, it’s just not as big as it once was. And I’d like to see it brought back to being as big of a deal as it used to be.

Ramsey Russell: Do you ever worry that the federal government, this federal duck stamp program, is going to go to some kind of AI or digital or photograph, like a lot of the state people have to? Where it’s not even a stamp anymore, it’s just a sticker? Do you ever worry about that?

Adam Graham: Yeah. I mean, I know that there’s just like a move to digital and, right, I do worry about that. And I think that there’s people who, just like with a lot of these states, it’s like, “Well, let’s just scrap the program, scrap the contest.”

Ramsey Russell: “We just need the conservation dollars. Let’s cut our costs and just get the conservation dollars and move on.”

Adam Graham: Yeah. I mean, like South Dakota, you have to buy the South Dakota stamp or whatever, but there’s no stamp.

Ramsey Russell: What the heck? I hate those states, man. I’m sorry.

Adam Graham: And we used to have a stamp. South Dakota used to have a state duck stamp. And, you know, I love that there’s still the states out there that put in the energy and effort to produce a stamp. And like, Ohio is one of them. I wish South Dakota would bring it back, honestly. But, you know, it’s because for me, like hunting, and we talked about this a little bit off-air, there’s the nostalgia side of it.

Ramsey Russell: Especially waterfowl hunting.

Adam Graham: Oh, especially waterfowl. And growing up, I remember when I bought my first federal duck stamp. I remember buying my state duck stamp. I remember looking at the artwork and looking at who the artist was and thinking, “Wow, that’s really cool.” I still remember this one Ohio duck stamp. I don’t even know who the artist is now, I don’t remember. But it kind of had a pinky background, and it was like a flock of buffleheads coming and landing. And I just thought, “Wow, that is so cool.” Like, the colors of the pink with the buffleheads. And it just looked really neat, the way that it looked like an early morning scene, like we would see in Ohio. But I mean, that’s the thing, those things stay with you. And so, just like I was saying, when I do a duck painting, I’m trying to capture something that is gonna strike a chord with people. It’s funny because I correlate it to music, because it’s another form of art. But when you hear a certain song, it can instantly take you back in time, to a high school dance. And, you know, that’s the song I danced with this girl for the first time or something. Like, it just invokes an emotion. Same thing with smell, right. You smell something and it’s like suddenly you’re, you know, you’re somewhere else just because you remember, you correlate it with something. And so, art, I kind of feel, does a lot the same thing. And the artwork is what has made this federal duck stamp program so successful.

Ramsey Russell: But there is a lot of parallels between, like, there is a lot of parallels, Adam, between rock albums, music, and art expressed in duck stamps or other paintings and stuff. And I mean, man, you know, rock and roll, the whole big era of rock and roll died, I think, when they went from LPs to cassettes to where now, I don’t, back in the day, Led Zeppelin comes out with a new album, and we read the back of the covers. And, I mean, do you remember pulling an album out, smelling that vinyl? Me and my buddy Show talked about that one time. I mean, it was exciting. You know, used to smell that vinyl. And read the cover and artwork. And then following was the tour and the t-shirts and the memorabilia and everything else. If you’re a pop artist or a musician or something else, I guess you’re just making money on downloads, on iTunes. I don’t know how that works and don’t care how it works, because I kind of aged out around Kid Rock. I don’t know who any of these other artists are. But at the same time, I can see that trend, and it’s worrisome to me. And the question I’ve got here, what made me think of the whole Led Zeppelin thing, is you buy an album. Most people, you go out and buy an album because of one song that hit the radio.

Adam Graham: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And I’m sitting there thinking, “Man, they had agencies or people greasing the skids to get it on the radio and get it listened to a lot to sell the album.” Now you’ve got a print, let’s say that gadwall, it makes it all the way to number two, but it don’t get off into the million-dollar duck category. What do you do with that? I mean, I listen to a lot of albums. I mean, you listen to a lot of albums. And the song that you bought the album for, or the cassette or the CD or whatever the case may be that you bought it for, great. But there’s a lot of other good ones too, you know. And what do you do with the gadwall type, the second placers or the ones that don’t place?

Adam Graham: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And do you ever do drawings beyond the duck stamp? Or is your whole life committed now to the duck stamp?

Adam Graham: Oh no, I do a lot of other art. I mean, a lot of my daily work are commissions.

Ramsey Russell: Okay, okay.

Adam Graham: You know, commission paintings, commission drawings. I mean, I’ll have people call up and they’ll want me to do a drawing of their dog. And maybe they’ve got some great photo they took out, you know, in the fall season, their dog sitting on a, like a muskrat hut, holding a drake pintail or, you know, something like that, like, “Man, I’d love to get a drawing or a painting of this.” And I do a lot of that. And so one thing I will say, even if I don’t win the federal, like, I mean, it’s always better when you do, right? But even if you don’t win, if you do a painting that gets up there, it’s still going to get a lot of notoriety. You know, people are still going to see it. As the exhibit goes around the country, they always take like the top 20 paintings around the country.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Adam Graham: And have those at different events. So people still see your artwork a lot of times, but not to the degree as if it were to win.

Ramsey Russell: In the past 20 years, since your first win, have you become more proficient at monetizing it? Monetizing the wins and the placements?

Adam Graham: Yeah, I think a lot about each piece and what am I going to do with it. So even if it doesn’t win, or I guess especially if it doesn’t win, I try to think of other outlets for it. There’s Ducks Unlimited, which has a national stamp. If you get picked for Artist of the Year, which I’ve been selected twice for that, they always have you do the national stamp the following year. So I’ve twice had that. And I’ve used paintings that didn’t win the Federal but maybe got close. They look at it and say, “Yeah, we would love to use that for our stamps.” So I’ve had outlets for stuff with that, but also just selling the painting, maybe making a real limited number of prints of that image if there’s interest in it. I’m constantly looking at that. I had someone call me the other day interested in having me do a white-fronted goose painting, and I haven’t really done any. If I do it, I would definitely plan on having it be something I could submit to Ducks Unlimited to use for their national merchandise package. If they pick it up in their national merchandise package, I’ll have prints of that image at every banquet across the country. It might be 1500–2000 banquets. You think of how many people are at each banquet. That’s a lot of eyes on your artwork. Even if someone doesn’t buy that print, if they see the artwork and are impressed with it, it might inspire them to go on my website and look at other artwork that I’ve done. It all correlates. So I’m constantly trying to look at ways to get my artwork in front of as many people as possible.

Ramsey Russell: All right, real quickly, just tell me what your typical day, what is a typical day in the life of a wildlife artist like yourself?

Adam Graham: Well, it varies. It depends on if there’s deadlines and things. Usually, when I’m painting, I am awake and at my studio painting from about probably 6:00 a.m., maybe earlier, until close to suppertime. I might run home for lunch. My studio is across the street. I’m actually in my studio right now. It’s across the street from the house that we live in.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Adam Graham: So it’s kind of nice. I can just walk.

Ramsey Russell: Do you have a telephone? Do you put your iPhone on silent?

Adam Graham: No, I have my phone on. If someone wants to call me, like, if I’m painting, I could literally be painting and doing this interview with you right now. I might be a little more distracted, but I frequently will have either music playing while I’m painting or sometimes I’m doing phone calls because I have to with people.

Ramsey Russell: Listen to podcasts?

Adam Graham: Listen to podcasts. Sometimes I’ll put a movie on or something, usually only if it’s a movie I’ve already seen, because otherwise it’s pretty distracting.

Ramsey Russell: Same here.

Adam Graham: When I’m working, I’m just dialed in drawing or painting. It’s funny when one of my kids or my wife comes over to see me. It’s cool that I’m not gone. If something’s happening, kids taking their first steps as a baby, or they need help with something, I’m just right here. I don’t have to ask anybody if I can step away. I can just spritz my paints with some water so they stay wet, clean my brush, and I can walk and go.

Ramsey Russell: When you were, go ahead. I’m sorry, go ahead.

Adam Graham: I was just going to say, you’ve got to be very disciplined when you have that freedom. You’ve got to be very disciplined. So when I’m here working, I am working. It’s usually fast, fast enough pace that my kids will stop over and see what I’m working on, and they’re shocked that I got that much done already. That’s a common reaction, “Wow, you’re already that far along? I didn’t even know you started this.” That’s the reaction. So I do treat it very seriously, and I credit that to my childhood upbringing, my parents having me treat this like a job from a young age.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. As a wildlife artist, especially at the competitive level of the duck stamp, I’m looking across the room at one of my favorite paintings of all time. It was given to me by the late federal agent Jim Pilgreen. A childhood buddy of his from up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, had painted this. The last name of the artist is Steele. It’s a flock of blue wings coming in. There’s old Willis nag in the background, the Mississippi River, and an old decrepit wheel boat with vines growing up. It just, it speaks to me. Born on the banks of the Mississippi River, growing up in that kind of stuff. I love the blue-winged teal. I love the composition, everything about the photo, but it just speaks to me at a different level than just the blue-winged teal. I walked in his office one day and saw it and fell in love with it. Next thing I know, a few months later, I come in my office and there was one rolled up with a rubber band around it. Opened it up, and there it was. I’m like, wow. It means a lot to me for a lot of different levels. So when you’re painting this white-fronted goose you’ve been commissioned for, or doing a duck stamp photo, how important is the bird, the accuracy, the artistic presentation, the composition, and how important is it to have that bird in some form of context of its natural habitat, of something relatable to the hunter? I mean, I know there for a spell, I think they’ve dismissed it now, but there for a spell, it had to have some kind of connection to hunting beyond. So how important is each to win a duck stamp competition or to paint a commission? Is it about the bird, or is it about the bird plus its natural surroundings?

Adam Graham: I think the habitat and the look and feel, sometimes a bird, just a simple bird on plain water with nothing else, can win. That can win. If the lighting is beautiful on the bird, it can still win. The ones that resonate the most with me are the paintings that have some habitat and just kind of capture something special. As an artist, you’re constantly juggling what you should paint for the contest, what’s going to resonate with the judges. If you make it too region-specific, sometimes that can be a detriment. Stuff with Ducks Unlimited, if it’s too region-specific, they might not be interested in it for their national merchandise package because they’ve got to sell these prints at banquets in California, on the East Coast, up North, or down South. So if you do a painting with snow, there’s a good portion of the country that maybe hasn’t really seen snow until just this winter. So there’s more of a risk in doing that. I always say that a painting is judged by its weakest points. That’s true for a lot of things, a song or a construction job. You could do a beautiful job on 98% of it, and if 2% of it isn’t very good, that’s the part that’s going to stand out to everybody and bring the whole thing down. So, this year for the Federal Duck Stamp Contest, I ended up painting a really different duck. It’s called a spectacled eider.

Ramsey Russell: I was going to ask you, why did you choose a spectacled eider? Because I would guess that most hunters listening, most of the judges, myself included, have never laid eyes on a spectacled eider in the wild.

Adam Graham: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Why did you choose that bird?

Adam Graham: Yeah. So, again, there were five eligible species for the Federal Duck Stamp Contest. I had made up my mind that I was going to paint a hooded merganser. I barely even looked at the spectacled eider as an option. I mean, I saw that it was an option, but I quickly dismissed it.

Ramsey Russell: How many options do you have?

Adam Graham: I’m sorry?

Ramsey Russell: When they set out those guidelines, how many options do you have?

Adam Graham:       Five eligible species

Ramsey Russell: Okay, five eligible species, choose one of these.

Adam Graham: Greater Scaup was a species, Brant was a species, and something else, I forget now what. But Hooded Merganser seemed like the obvious. Oh, Northern Shoveler, which is also a beautiful bird. But they all have kind of a downfall. The Shoveler has that really big bill. The Hooded Merganser has that weird-shaped head with the crest, which I think is beautiful. But if you have a judge that doesn’t even know the duck species, which happens, how are they going to view it. Greater Scaup is beautiful, but not as flashy as some of the other ones. The Eiders are beautiful, it’s just that they’re kind of weird-looking and they’re from a very obscure western Alaska area. They don’t migrate south. They winter out on the Bering Sea between the ice sheets and everything. I just looking at them, I thought, okay, I’m going to go with the Hooded Merganser. I think it’s the safest bet, and I think I can do a really good painting of them. I wanted to get even better reference. I actually traveled. A friend of ours has an aviary in Wisconsin, and she has Hooded Mergansers in her aviary. I talked to her. She’s like, “Oh yeah, I’ve got like three really good drakes, and my daughter also has an aviary,” which is a whole other story. I was actually going to pick up some birds to bring back from this person in Wisconsin, but I said, “Well, if I can come and photograph them in your aviary, that would be great.” So I was there photographing Hooded Mergansers. I took probably several thousand Hooded Merganser photos. I had great reference for this painting. But that one evening, I was taking pictures of the Hooded Mergansers and the sun was going down, and the whole pen that the Hooded Mergansers were in fell into shade. Once it fell into shade, the sunlight was gone. I was pretty much shut down for taking the pictures. But the sun wasn’t down, it just wasn’t in that pen anymore. It was still hitting another pen that she had with other ducks in it. One of the ducks in this other pen were Spectacled Eiders. She’s one of the few people in the whole country that has any in captivity. I asked her, “Could I go photograph the Eiders?” She’s like, “Well, yeah, go ahead.” So I went in there, I laid down, I was taking pictures of these Spectacled Eiders, like laying down on the ground flat. And some of the young ones, actually the young Eiders, had walked up right up to me and were just kind of watching me taking pictures of the older, more mature birds. It was cool. But looking at these Eiders in that sunlight, and I just kind of got this vision in my head, like if I could paint these birds in this sunlight with mountains in the background.

Ramsey Russell: Was that afternoon sunlight? Low-hanging afternoon sunlight? That’s what it looks like in the painting. I’m sitting here looking at the painting on my phone. It looks like golden hour. It looks like they’re looking to the west. They’ve got the Alaskan mountain range in the background, and you can tell that’s a low-hanging light, and they’re looking at the setting sun.

Adam Graham: It was setting sun. I just thought, man, if I could paint this, So the image you’re looking at, I kind of got that image in my head. I thought, if I could paint something like that, I think it could win. I told my friend Tim, who was with me, I said, “Tim, I’m going to tell you right now, I can’t rule out the possibility of maybe painting Spectacled Eiders for the Federal.” He’s like, “Oh yeah, you’re not going to want to paint those.” And I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m telling you, like, I’m looking at my reference, these pictures I’m taking, and I’m thinking, I think it could win.” I’d rather win with Hooded Mergansers, but I’d rather win. I just felt at that moment like I think this duck could win. So the funny thing is, I came back, went through all my reference. I did two mock-ups, Hooded Merganser, Eider. Showed it to family, friends, asked, “What do you like better?” Almost everybody picked the Eiders. I was like, alright, I’m going to paint these Eiders. I painted these Spectacled Eiders, and I had the painting like 90% of the way done. There’s a guy here in town, his name’s Harvey, an older guy and kind of a gruff character. He stops over to visit with me and talk about hunting and trapping. He stopped over, and he came up and he’s standing there right over my shoulder, talking to me while I’m painting. I’m really into the painting, really dialed in, feeling pretty good about it, thinking, like, wow, this is turning out really like how I wanted this to turn out. Harvey is standing there talking. Then he kind of stops and he’s just looking at what I’m painting. And he says, “Man, that is one ugly duck.” What to the core. I remember sitting there thinking, you know what? Harvey’s right. These are kind of an ugly duck. Like, what am I doing? What if I get one judge that has those same sentiments? I’m done in this contest. I just thought that was going to be it. I’m going to be screwed. But at this point, there was no time to do anything different. I’m like, well, I just got to finish it. But I literally had written off the painting at that moment. I thought, no, it’s not going to work out. I’m not going to do that well this year. I mean, that’s really what I thought. So to go from feeling good about it to switching that hard of a turn, it really got discouraging. But I’m disciplined enough and professional enough that I still finished the painting to the best of my abilities, sent it in, and just had very low expectations. And it won.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. I’m sitting here still looking at the stamp. You’ve got a pair of Spectacled Eiders. We were talking about the subtle beauty of a Gadwall previously. And those hen Eiders are gorgeous. Every one, those brick-red hen Eiders, whether it’s Common or King, they’re a gorgeous bird in their own right. Without all the regalia, without all the male regalia, they’re still just a gorgeous bird. That’s a very, very nice painting. Congratulations on that. I’m glad you stuck it out, because that’s going to be a heck of a duck stamp.

Adam Graham: Well, thank you. It felt great calling up Harvey and telling him, “Hey, you know that ugly duck painting that I was doing. It won.”

Ramsey Russell: Did you tell me that your art streak is running in the family? That you have a daughter that’s also doing some paintings?

Adam Graham: I do, yeah. So my whole family, it’s funny, because when I met my wife, I remember she saw an NRA sticker on the back of my truck, and she said, “Isn’t that those gun people?” And I remember my response was, “I’m those gun people.” And I thought, this is probably not going to work out. But now she loves to shoot guns, she loves to hunt. All of my kids love to hunt. She had just never been around it. And again, I advocate for people, take a young person hunting, get them out there, whether it’s your child or not. I’ve taken a number of kids from this town out duck hunting and fishing, too. Just get kids outdoors, it’s great. But to see my own family so centered around hunting, how much my kids love hunting, the fact that my wife was willing to move out to nowhere, South Dakota, this little town of Wallace, and to be a part of this and help me with my business, it’s been awesome. But yeah, so my kids, I’ve got one daughter, Madison. She has won the Federal Junior Duck Stamp competition three times.

Ramsey Russell: How old is she?

Adam Graham: She’s 18 now, so she just aged out of the junior contest, but she’ll be entering the adult contest this year. Not competing against me, fortunately, because I have to sit out for three years. As a new winner. So she can have at it. But it is pretty cool. I’ve won the adult contest three times, she’s won the junior three times. I’m the youngest to ever win the adult contest, and she’s the youngest to ever win the junior contest. We’ve had some cool correlations. The second time she won the junior duck stamp contest, she asked me, she said, “Dad…” She was so cute because she was nervous to even ask me because she just knew I was going to say no. She said, “I’ve been talking with this friend of mine, this girl in Wisconsin that had the Spectacled Eiders. She’s got an aviary, and I would love to build something like that. And if I funded it, would you help me build it?” What she didn’t know is I had secretly always wanted an aviary. And I’m like, “Yeah, okay.” And she was ecstatic. We built a 36-by-48-foot pen with a canopy net. She bought a shed that attaches to it, and the whole thing. She had a pond dug and concrete poured that drains out to the ditch. She’s got like 150 ducks in that aviary, I think 17 different species of ducks, all wild species. It’s awesome.

Ramsey Russell: Did she come to you and say, “Dad, how do I do this? Got any suggestions? Could you critique me?” Or is she a typical teenager that beats to the march of their own drum and finds her own way? Obviously, your dedication and your work inspired her. Boy, I bet she walks into your shop and smells those paints and gets that nostalgic streak. But at the same time, do you just let her kind of do her own thing and find her own art?

Adam Graham: Yeah. So she grew up, I mean, from a baby, right? I mean, I worked at home, so she grew up coming in to see me in my studio. I used to work in a bedroom in our house. So, I mean, having my own studio is kind of a new thing. But, I mean, she used to come in all the time and see me. She was like a toddler. She was like three or four. And she would stand there or sit down and watch me and visit while I was painting. And it’s tedious. Like the work I’m doing, I’m not doing a half-hour Bob Ross painting. I mean, these are months-long paintings or more. And she would sit there and just watch me work. And I just remember thinking, like, wow, I can’t believe she’s that into it. Well, she went up to my wife and told her that she’d like to try to do a painting like Daddy. And so my wife said, well, then you should probably talk to Daddy about it. And so, I actually knew about, again, the Junior Duck Stamp Contest. And I told her, I said, well, maybe you could do a painting for that. And she always seemed to like to draw, and she was pretty good. And so I had her practice some techniques with the paints and everything. And once she kind of had her footing on that, she tried doing this painting. And I thought it turned out pretty nice. I let her use one of my photos for reference. And she not only won Best of Show for the state of South Dakota, but then her painting went on to compete nationally. And she was only six. And I was shocked that she even won Best of Show for South Dakota. But again, South Dakota is not a real populated state, so I thought maybe that’s why. But then she ended up winning the whole competition, the national contest, so becoming the youngest ever. I was floored by that, and so were a lot of other people. I mean, I thought her painting was pretty good, but it was shocking to see them pick her painting. I just couldn’t believe it. And she ended up winning, like I said, two more times a number of years later. Yeah, she’s very talented. But her passion for waterfowl, I don’t know if I could say it exceeds mine, but it matches it for sure. And it’s just surprising to see. I mean, she’s out there in her aviary multiple times every day, feeding, watering, changing the pond water, sometimes tube feeding a duck if it’s ill. I mean, it’s unbelievable the stuff that she’s done with the aviary and the success that she’s had with it. Yeah, she’s very passionate, and it’s cool to see her enjoying kind of the same things that I enjoy. It gives us a lot to talk about. And then my other daughter, Hannah, she also is really into the ducks, but she’s into the feathers. And she goes out and collects feathers from some of Madison’s aviary birds and makes like earrings and things, too. So she has her own interest with that stuff. And then my boys, I think they both mostly just like hunting. They’re pretty into going out and hunting. Not that my daughters don’t like that too, but my boys are really into it.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, go ahead, if about to wrap this up. But I got a question for you. We were talking, I read off some of the stats. You know, you’re a hunter yourself. Your boys, that’s what we were coming at, your boys are hunters. Your kids, everybody. I mean, through your passion as a hunter and artist, three-time Federal Duck Stamp winner, it’s inspired, it’s a family event. It’s not just you. Your wife, I mean, throughout this conversation, your wife has been one of the most supportive people in your lives. I mean, times are tough. You got babies, and she’s teaching them and homeschooling. And man, you got bills like we all got bills. And she’s supporting you, saying, yeah, do this thing. And here you are. But as a hunter, what does it mean to you to be a part of something like the Federal Duck Stamp Program that has generated billions in conservation, and also Ducks Unlimited. I mean, these prints are being sold at banquets and conventions to fund wetlands conservation. I mean, have you ever sat back while you’re drawing and just given a thought to, it’s not that you’re making a living, it’s not that you’re raising your family into this. It’s not just all that. It’s that, wow, I’m giving back to this thing too. I mean, the impact of a three-time winner. You know what I’m saying? And Ducks Unlimited and Lord knows what else we haven’t covered yet. I mean, what does that mean to you? How does it feel to have been that instrumental in that kind of habitat conservation?

Adam Graham: Well, it’s certainly very humbling. I mean, to think of that, to think that I, this kid from Ohio, could grow up to have that kind of an impact on wetlands conservation and wildlife awareness, I think is another big factor. Like I said, the lady that’s never seen a wood duck, if people don’t know about the wildlife, they’re not going to care about it. And that’s why when you just make it a digital fee on some license for hunting, you’re not having that, you’re not getting that visual awareness out there.

Ramsey Russell: Amen. Hey man, that’s a great point. Beside the dollars and cents that go into the state and federal budgets, yeah, it’s what the non-hunting public is being compelled to buy and fund, their part of conservation, but also exposing them to a world without which they wouldn’t have a clue.

Adam Graham: So those spectacled eiders that I painted for the federal, that nobody’s ever seen, they’re pretty obscure birds in their existence. But they are cool-looking ducks, and they live in some of the most beautiful places up in northwestern Alaska, western Alaska. And so if I could paint something that can capture that and give people an idea in their head, even if they never get to travel up there, about, hey, these birds exist, and this is where they live. Look at the beauty that’s there. If people are aware of it, they’re going to care about it. And if people care about it, they’re going to be more willing to donate to groups like Ducks Unlimited and others that are playing a major factor in conservation. So to be a part of that in some kind of small way is pretty awesome. I just had a meeting with a guy, he actually just bought my original winning Federal Duck Stamp painting. He owns all three of my winning paintings and like 60-some other winning Federal Duck Stamp artwork, the biggest collection of anyone, and he just donated it to a museum in Connecticut. It’s still on display there for a few more days, actually. But this guy was talking about it. He said, “You know,” he said, “I’ve learned that it’s the art,” he said, “it’s the art more than anything else that is having an impact on people when they see these paintings.” You know, a lot of people’s understanding of conservation and of wildlife and nature comes from the artwork, because so many people aren’t getting out there themselves or traveling to see it. And so my understanding of a lot of these species that I’ve never seen before is coming from other artists’ artwork. And it gives me a sense of what’s out there and kind of keeps driving me to keep pursuing those passions.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. Boy, what a great note to end on, Adam. How can people contact you? How can people connect? How can my listeners connect with Adam Grim?

Adam Graham: Yeah, so if you go on my website, my website is just AdamGrim.com.

Ramsey Russell: Two M’s.

Adam Graham: Yep, two M’s. Yeah, www.adamgrimm.com. So, I mean, pretty easy to find. I’ve got links on there through to social media stuff. But there’s a contact section on my website, and people can just write to me through that. And yeah, I mean, like I said, I am happy to do commission stuff. There’s artwork that’s available on the website, not many originals right now, I’ve actually sold most of those, but I do have quite a few prints available. And I can do originals for people on commission. And I’ll be coming out with prints of this year’s Federal Duck Stamp as well in the near future here. The stamps come out, they’re available in the summer, so I have to wait until the stamps are out to actually sell the prints. But those will be available too.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic.

Adam Graham: I should throw out there, my daughter Madison, her website is MadisonGrimmArt.com.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. That’s awesome. I hope to jump in a duck blind with you. I hope to come to South Dakota one more time. I told you at least one more time. I’ve got to remember to apply. And, you know what I want to shoot, I want to shoot a swan, I want to shoot a tundra swan in South Dakota. Could you help me out?

Adam Graham: I could help you out with that. We have them. There are some areas that I know where their numbers are pretty strong. And I’ve got swan decoys. I shot my first swan, and only swan, about four years ago. I really set out to try to get one. It’s like a $25 license. It’s not that expensive. But I will say, table fare-wise, they’re not great. I mean, we ate it.

Ramsey Russell: They’re not bad. I mean, I really cook them. They remind me of geese. I make barbecues. That’s what I ended up doing, man. I make like a Mississippi pot roast recipe sometimes. And sometimes I make just a kind of pot roast that I turn into a barbecue sandwich. What surprised me the most about swans, and I’ve shot bunches of them, but my goal, the reason what brings me to South Dakota, is I’d like to kill one in all nine states that you can get one. And maybe one day, state number 10 in Idaho, if it ever opens up in the right place to non-residents. But to me, it’s just, we were talking earlier about it, it’s not about the dead duck or the species or the taxidermy. It’s about just the chase. And I’m running out of ground to chase. I want to chase more. And I’d love to spend some time with you and your daughter and go swan hunting in South Dakota.

“So I’ve actually got family now from Ohio here. And then his friend came to visit, and now he lives here too. So it seems like people come and they don’t want to leave.”

Adam Graham: You would love it. I would love to welcome you to come out. Yeah, we actually have the downstairs in my studio set up as like a guest house. So when hunters come to hunt, we let people stay here and everything too. So it’s pretty nice, I gotta say. I mean, we love where we are. You know, and it’s funny, this little town I told you, Wallace, it’s just like nothing on a map. I mean, you find it on a map, there’s hardly anything here. My cousin came to visit from Ohio with his wife, I mean, they were a new couple. Newly married couple, and they both fell in love with it. So now they live here. They built a house, they just had a baby. So I’ve actually got family now from Ohio here. And then his friend came to visit, and now he lives here too. So it seems like people come and they don’t want to leave.

“I’ve long since believed that $25 is way too cheap. Everybody listening needs to be buying four or five or six or ten of them. It’s going, 98% of that $25 is going into perpetual production ground for waterfowl.”

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Adam. I appreciate you coming on today and sharing your story and all the great stories and conversation. And thank you for doing what you do for conservation. I’ve long since believed that $25 is way too cheap. Everybody listening needs to be buying four or five or six or ten of them. It’s going, 98% of that $25 is going into perpetual production ground for waterfowl. Not wintering ground, not heated ponds, not flooded corn. It’s going into producing more ducks. So everybody, buy a bunch of duck stamps. Folks, you all been listening to Adam Grim, three-time Federal Duck Stamp winner. Thank you all for listening episode of Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere Podcast. We’ll see you next time.