{"id":4296,"date":"2024-10-09T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T22:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/?p=4296"},"modified":"2024-10-09T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T22:18:09","slug":"bruce-urben-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/bruce-urben-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Urben"},"content":{"rendered":"

Environmental Enthusiast, Talented Wisconsin Carver<\/h4>\n
\"Bruce<\/a>
Bruce Urben, shown here with a winning decoy in Wisconsin\u2019s 2018 Decoy Carving Contest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of our WWA Newsletter readers, when receiving our monthly newsletter, immediately scan down to the \u201cDecoy Corner\u201d, looking forward to learning a little more history from Bruce Urben, who highlights carvers from all over the country each month.\u00a0 The history in these articles are timeless, as are the decoys they produce, and this month we will learn a little more about the author of the \u201cDecoy Carving Corner\u201d, Bruce Urben.<\/p>\n

Finally, an article about our author!<\/p>\n

Born, November 23rd<\/sup>, 1954 , to Fred and Bernadine Urben, originally in Madison, WI, Bruce grew up on along a river in Northeastern WI, and says he was first introduced to waterfowling on the shores of this river at the age of 12 and has been an avid outdoorsman\/duck hunter ever since.<\/p>\n

Bruce can trace his ancestry back to immigrants from Germany and Switzerland in the 1800\u2019s, and is the youngest of three siblings.\u00a0 Gary, his oldest brother, was an amateur carver and potentially gave Bruce his first taste of decoy carving, although he has always had a knack for woodworking. His first recollection of carving was using a bar of ivory soap as a medium for a grade school project (grades received for this first carving were not immediately available by press time for this article).<\/p>\n

\"Bruce<\/a>
Bruce Urben swan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bruce attended college at the University of Oshkosh, receiving his bachelors degree, in which time he always mentions duck hunting was on hold\u2026<\/p>\n

Following college, Bruce started his 38 year career with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in the environmental & conservation fields.<\/p>\n

Decoy carving began casually in the 90\u2019s for Bruce, but he started carving professionally after retirement from the DNR in 2007.\u00a0 As most successful carvers do, Bruce found himself a trusted mentor in Mike Pierce, who is nationally recognized and professional carver from Illinois who currently resides in Wausau, to learn from.\u00a0 Many hours of mentored leadership from Mike have now allowed Bruce to enjoy success nationally himself with his own work.<\/p>\n

\"Bruce\u2019s<\/a>
Bruce\u2019s winning Scaup from the 2021 Ward\u2019s World Championship competition<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bruce primarily carves working decoys, many of which he hunts over himself with his two boys, however, has done some decorative decoys.\u00a0 Using primarily white cedar and basswood for his carving, Bruce harvests most of his own wood and personally dries each piece for years prior to carving.\u00a0 All of his working decoys have hollowed bodies, showing intricate bill carving, scratch painted bodies and unique postures.\u00a0 Artist oil tube paints, incorporating blending and shading, are primarily used for each decoy Bruce produces.<\/p>\n

When asked what his specialty is, Bruce would say working decoys and that he especially enjoys contemporary antique decoys.\u00a0 All of his decoys are branded, signed and dated on the bottom of each decoy.\u00a0 While duck decoys are his passion, Bruce has also ventured into shorebirds and even swans as requested through the years.<\/p>\n

To date, Bruce has won numerous awards at International Wildfowl Carvers Association<\/a> (IWCA) and open class carving contests across Wisconsin and beyond, and has recently seen success with decoys he has entered into the Ward World Championships<\/a>, claiming 1st<\/sup> place in species for a scaup working pair, 2nd<\/sup> place in Puddle Duck division for his contemporary antique preening pintail and a 3rd<\/sup> place finish recently in 2021 for his scaup working decoy.\u00a0 In 2020 Bruce was honored along with ten other national carvers as a Celebrity Carver for Delta Waterfowl\u2019s Yearly fundraising decoy, quite an honor for any carver!<\/p>\n

\"Bruce<\/a>
WWA President Bruce Urben donated this Barrows Golden Eye Drake to support WWA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bruce continues to carve today in his retirement, spending countless hours in the shop, while continuing his avid waterfowling with his two boys and grandchildren.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t find Bruce in the shop, he is either on a boat during duck season, in a tree during deer season, or taking in a sporting event for one of his several grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Decoys from Bruce are currently available by direct commission, while some may be available on the secondary auction market.\u00a0 Many of Bruce\u2019s decoys are donated to fundraising events for conservation organizations like WWA, DU, and Delta Waterfowl.\u00a0 Bruce has also been highlighted in articles for Gun Dog Magazine<\/em>, Delta Waterfowl Magazine<\/em> and NBC 26, among other publications.<\/p>\n

Currently Bruce resides in Southern Oconto County on 30 acres of wetland with his wife, Diane, and in close proximity to his two sons and their families.<\/p>\n

Some of Bruce\u2019s earliest work is held under lock and key with his two sons, Bryan and Eric. It\u2019s safe to say Bruce\u2019s carving skills have come a long way since his first attempts in the late 90\u2019s!\u00a0\u00a0 Catch Bruce at almost any WWA event and he will happily talk carving with you over a beverage or two, truly a Wisconsin & National Carving treasure, right here in Northeastern Wisconsin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmental Enthusiast, Talented Wisconsin Carver Many of our WWA Newsletter readers, when receiving our monthly newsletter, immediately scan down to the \u201cDecoy Corner\u201d, looking forward to learning a little more history from Bruce Urben, who highlights carvers from all over the country each month.\u00a0 The history in these articles are timeless, as are the decoys…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decoy-corner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4302,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions\/4302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}