About Dennis Schroeder
Dennis Schroeder was born and raised in the wildfowl rich pot hole region of Minnesota with its many lakes, rivers and abundant wildlife and waterfowl. Wildlife art was always his primary interest while growing up and through his art education, sketching and painting the surrounding lakes and marshes and it's wildlife. He has spent countless hours in his aviary and in the field studying and photographing waterfowl and other birds.
However, it was not until attending a wildfowl carving competition as a spectator that the desire to produce wildfowl as sculpture was inspired. He began his carving career in 1984 and soon found that his background in landscape and wildlife painting to be very useful in creating his carvings.
Dennis began to enter his wildfowl carvings in competitions across the country, resulting in numerous first places and best of show awards. In 1990 and again in 1991 he won the prestigious title of World Champion in the Ocean City, Maryland international wildfowl carving competition. Though he does not compete in these competitions any longer, his love of wildfowl art has only increased.
He now regularly serves as a judge in many of these wildfowl carving competitions, including the World Championships. He was also invited to judge the renowned Federal Duck Stamp art competition in Washington D.C. He was also selected to do the centerpiece carving for the 2004 Easton Waterfowl Festival, one of the largest fundraising wildfowl conservation events in the world. He has authored numerous books on carving and painting decorative decoys, and has a wide selection of carving aides and tools to assist other wildfowl carvers.
It has long been a goal of Dennis to be instrumental in promoting and elevating the art of wildfowl carving. His work is displayed in museums and private collections across the nation and in other countries. His carvings and duplicated birds have also been used by organizations such as Ducks Unlimited as fund raisers to acquire land for habitat for wildlife conservation internationally.
Dennis and his wife Carolyn live on a beautiful salmon and steelhead river in the Trinity Alps area of Northern California.