Richard Goerg

Wildlife artist Richard Goerg (Dick) is the carver/sculptor for Wild Wing Carving. Richard creates pieces of art in the traditional method of bird and trout carving and also by interpretive sculpture of wildfowl. Richard carves waterfowl, gamebirds, raptors, trout, shorebirds and songbirds of North America and Western Europe.

Richard was born in Port Angeles, Washington, USA. After 10 years of teaching in a Washington institution for delinquent children, he arrived in Canada in 1976 to take the position of school counsellor in Pace River and obtained duel citizenship as a Canadian citizen in 1980. Now, a retired educator, Richard and his wife, Sharon, live in the hamlet of Bruce, Alberta. There they have remodelled a "prairie school house" into a home and studio. This home/studio is located in the center of a major wildfowl migratory route which enables Richard to photograph and study birds represented in his work.

Richard's formal education consists of a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Education, majoring in biology, and an additional year of post graduate studies. He has visited Ireland 9 times; the longest when he spent a year living in Strandhill, Co. Sligo.

Richard was in public education for 30 years. He has been a high school biology and junior high science teacher, a school counsellor, and sixteen years as a school administrator. Richard has taught adult wood carving classes for the Camrose Art Society, Beaver County Adult Education program, and through Augustana University College in Camrose, Alberta.

After receiving several awards in international wildfowl carving competitions Richard has participated as a judge in those events. He donates pieces of his work to Ducks Unlimited, Canada, and other public service organizations. Richard's work is in corporate incentive gift programs and can be viewed in private collections in Canada, the United States, Asia, Ireland, Great Britain, and several other European countries.

Richard carves in both the traditional style, where birds and trout are created as a realistic representation of the species, and in the interpretive style of carving wildfowl into raw wood. In traditional carving Tupelo wood is used to develop a lifelike species. In wood sculpting the bird is developed to complement a unique natural wood form. He has published an article "Collecting and Carving from Unusual Wood Forms" in the Wildfowl Carving and Collecting magazine. Richard's work is under the business name Wild Wing Carving.

Exhibitions and Awards

Centennial Feature Artists Show 2005, Western Showcase Gallery, Calgary, Alberta
"All creatures Great and Small" 2004, Obsidian Art Gallery, Stoke Mandeville, Bucks, G.B.
Jurors' Choice Award 2002, Western Art Auction, Calgary, Alberta
Collectors' Choice Award 2002, Western Art Auction, Calgary, Alberta
Western Showcase Gallery (Featured Artist) 2002, Calgary Stampede, Calgary, Ab., Canada
Miniature Masterworks 1999, Canada House, Banff, Alberta, Canada
Showcasing Alberta Artisans 1999, You Be The Judge, Red Deer, Alberta
Corporate Gift and Art Show 1997, Rowlesb & Company, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Canada Miniature Masterworks 1991, Art of the Wild, Banff, Alberta, Canada

Richard's work can currently be viewed in the following locations:

Canada House, Banff, Alberta, Canada
Mountain Galleries at the Fairmont, Jasper, Alberta & Whistler, British Columbia, Canada
Art & Soul Gallery, High River, Alberta, Canada
Kenny's Art Gallery, Galway, Ireland
Art Beat Gallery, St. Albert, Alberta, Canada
Obsidian Art Gallery, Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, Great Britain
River's Edge Log Works. Blairmore, Alberta, Canda