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Doug Pederson’s Legacy of Wood and Art

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As a sawmill guy, wood artist Doug Pederson perhaps felt a tinge of financial joy whenever he saw me saunter through the door of his “Doug Cave” studio on the hill above Montevideo. He and other sawmill guys, and even the floor help at those box store lumberyard joints like Menards, might have sighed in relief. I’m the fellow who painstakingly looks through an entire stack of lumber before happily walking out with a board or plank that no one else would ever consider buying, character boards with odd knots and groovy grain, nicks and knocks and varying natural colors.

Pederson, who spent his Saturday morning signing copies of his newly published book of wildlife art and written thoughts in the courtyard of Java River, sold me a couple of “orphan” boards, and made at least another one into an incredible painting.

The back story: Several years ago an “ill-advised” couple talked me into building them a dining room table, so I called Don Schuck, a sawmill guy and wood artist up by Paynesville, to ask what he might have available. “Depends on what you want,” he said before suggesting he had some very nice maple that might work. 

With a free day my friend and I drove up and she thoroughly loved the grain and feel of the maple so that was a go. Don, though, had another board set aside knowing I was coming. He’s just that way. Besides having an incredible grain and color, it was also a wood that showed signs of chaffing. “Five bucks, and there isn’t another one like it you’ll find anywhere,” he said with the wiry, and perhaps, knowing smile.

Seated beside a copy of his new book, artist Doug Pederson signs a copy for a friend.

While starting to turn the maple this way and that … a key board with a dark wave resembling a flying crane would become the centerpiece … my orphan board was set aside. While intriguing, it seemed a bit short for doing much with it. One day coming in from the studio I passed this incredible board art painted by Pederson a few years before, a painting of bison where he blended the grain of the wood for the basis of a prairie mound. This is a fine example of his wood art and realistic wildlife paintings. This was a purchase either prior to or during an earlier Upper Minnesota River Arts Meander, an event he participated in from the beginning. 

After passing the bison painting the orphan was quickly placed in the pickup and we were off to Pederson’s studio where I waltzed in and handed the six-foot plank over to him. “I don’t care what you paint, Doug. And there is no deadline. Stick it someplace and see what comes to mind.”

And, I forgot about it. Literally.

Months later, perhaps years later, he called. Said he had finished a painting. That if I didn’t like it he’d come up with something different. After arriving at his studio he presented me with the orphan framed with an incredible scene of common and hooded mergansers frolicking in a rocky rapids, using the grain as waves, all framed by a branched and weathered river sprout fighting against the midstream current. A minnow is in the beak of one of the mergansers. Besides being so realistic and amazingly artistic, it was a Doug Pederson through and through. How could you not be impressed with his artistry, his magic with a brush and his keen respect of the wood grain there as a natural feature within the art?

Years ago I purchased this painting of bison where he used the natural wood grain to accent a prairie mound. His use of grain is a beautiful feature of his paintings.

Oh, there was also the time upon leaving his studio on a chance visit that he had chunks of scrap slabs in a battered cardboard box by the outside door. I picked one that possessed a lot of character, a thick piece of weathered walnut. Paid him a couple of bucks before handing it back with the same request. “Here, Doug. Paint me something.” A couple of months later he called. On the darkened slab of walnut he had painted pair of otters peaking around a debit in the wood he used as a stream-side stump. He had sliced the slab in two, using part for a base to anchor the half with the painting. A cool shimmering of bark with a perfectly placed knot surrounding the base pulled the whole piece together. Pure magic! Amazing artistry!

All of this along with a couple of spalted maple vases with wildlife portrayals came to mind as I pulled into the only parking space available within two and a half blocks on either side of the street for his signing of his newly published book, “The Art of a Hunter.” This was a book signing I couldn’t miss, not after all these years of visiting Doug in his studio, of hanging his paintings, and not after learning earlier this spring when his son, Brook, after he called for me to pick up some walnut lumber he had milled, told me that his father had some serious health issues. Too many years of unmasked breathing of fine wood dust and a horrible smoking habit.

Using mergansers and a wood sprout in the current, all in connection with the natural grain, turned this “orphan” board into a beautiful pies of art.

Despite a very chilly early September morning, the courtyard outside of Java River was standing room only. All the courtyard tables were filled with folks crowding along the side. Out on the sidewalk beyond the wrought iron fence they stood about two deep. Doug’s wife, Marie, who manned the shelves of the local library for years, and his sister, Marcia Neely, took turns reading excerpts as Doug patiently signed book after book as the line of patient friends and fans of his art continued to wade up to his table. He knew us all.

His book is a fine collection of his years of painting the prairie nature he so loves, and his many thoughts of man’s dealing with the creatures of nature, those hunted and those he lovingly observed over a lifetime as a prairie naturalist and artist. Just inside the cover are these words: “I have a hard time using the word nature as if it’s separate from humans. We are one and the same but we humans seem a little lost.”

Marie and Marcia talked about the processes this semi-reclusive artist and woodsman went through, collecting and creating the paintings included in the book before his sister told of how her now elderly and struggling brother suddenly became quite energized once he began writing the text. Perhaps it was a life enhancing experience. With help of a grant from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council (SMAC), he and his family began curating the art and putting the text together in what became a 116 page collection. 

A walnut slab found in a cardboard box by his studio door was converted into a nice piece, with a pair of otters peeking around a flaw he used as a stump in the painting.

“Some of my best experiences happened while sitting in the woods or on the water with a camera,” he wrote. “I called it ‘catch and release’ hunting.” Something I have been doing for years, and like my long time friend, my outdoorsy-ness is more observing nowadays with my camera rather than actually paddling and fly fishing.

Times move along and there is no longer a “Doug Cave” on the hill just outside of Montevideo. Brook remodeled his and his father’s old wood shop studio a year or so ago to convert it into an Airbnb. For years Brook continued to work the family’s tree trimming business where much of the wood he and his father used for their respective art was cultivated. As times moved along, Brook no longer maintains the old family business. And his father? He just published a book on his life as a naturalist and artist, a fine reflection of his legacy of wood and art.

If interested, copies are $25 apiece and can be purchased at either Java River or by contacting Doug at scrimdp50@gmail.com/.

Oaken Moments

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Two women stood in front of a canvas I’d titled “Oaken Umbrella.” They conversed somewhat secretly it seemed, sometimes raising fingers to perhaps camouflage their conversation. Other Meander customers were coming forth with credit cards offered and various images in hand. 

After glimpsing the two leave the image, then return, time after time, again speaking in huddled conference, I finally found a moment to chat with them. “Would you like to take it down to move it into better light?” I offered.

No, said one. “We love this but it’s more than we can spend,” said the other.

I briefly remembered the moment the picture was taken. This beautiful oak was on the Griffin Land on a hillside overlooking Lake Gilchrist, with its wide and staunch limbs stretching protectively wide to encompass the undergrowth along with thoughts and memories of this and other proud and stately oaks. It was much like the Heath Gunn poem of “The Spreading Oak” … broad and thick, and handsome trunk, supports the mighty branches, arching, spanning, spreading as if like Medieval lances … “

This image, Oaken Umbrella, served as a memorial for a woman who embraced oak trees.

That is the thing about oak trees, which my partner, Roberta, refers to as “Halloween Trees” thanks to the often ghostly looking stark limbs that seem to jut from the trunks, limbs that are quite visible about now as the late fall has denuded many of the trees. Gnarly and stately trunks of especially the older trees, some dating more than a century in age, offer forms of visual poetry that nearly always grasps my eye.

About 11 years ago the Bonanza portion of Big Stone Lake State Park was introduced to me by a young woman friend, a night when a full moon beckoned in the sky far above the hillside prairie of the park. There, standing all alone away from a small oaken savanna in an abbreviated ravine, was an oak I’ve since photographed numerous times. By now the tree is an old friend, one you feel you should reach out to now and then just to see how things are going.

There it stood, a “Halloween Tree,” the grasses golden in the prairie beyond.

Stoic and strong, standing in the text of time, there isn’t much of a shared conversation. Yet, even one-sided I can feel the strength and independence of the lone oak. A few years ago a devastating derecho came in off Big Stone Lake to raise havoc with many of the aged-old oaks both along the lakeside and there in the ravines of the prairie hillside. All that damage is still quite visible as most was left in place thanks to this being a “natural act of nature.” Yet, this single oak suffered no damage.

Just a few days ago we were ambling through the Bonanza searching for possible deer images when the afterglow of the prairie sunset painted an incredible orangish blaze in the grasses beyond the limbs of yet another old oak nearby. Roberta’s “Halloween” look of the old limbs snaked poetically from the trunk, somewhat silhouetted against the vivid color of the late sun-kissed prairie grasses that provided a splendid background. 

Emerging leaves from the staunch limbs on trees in a small oak savanna during a Master Naturalist hike near Redwing caught my eye.

Oaks have long sought my eye. Where I was raised in the hilly northeastern portion of Missouri,  the oaks on our farm were as dynamic to me as the shagbark hickories, and both were so unique and visually beautiful. Sometimes I would stop my horse to rein in that picturesque beauty, or if I was on a tractor mowing the hillsides, I would momentarily stop in awe. Now deep into retirement I still find an excuse to drive back onto the land now farmed by my nephew just to soak in the views of those old trees once again. And yes, most still grace those grassy hillsides all these years later.

On a Thanksgiving weekend evening a few years back, one of those old oak trees defied its  forestal surroundings with broad shouldered limbs defining its existence, limbs emerging from the dabbing of purplish leaves all around. My camera was raised to record this moment of late afternoon beauty. 

Back on the family farm in Missouri, this old oak stood apart from its forestal surrounding.

It didn’t take much imagination for me to close my eyes and have a running mental “film” rush though my memory of dozens of other encounters with various oak trees besides this one on the Griffin Land. Not long after my introduction to forest bathing a few years ago, that mix of nature with meditative breathing and awareness, i was on a Master Naturalist field trip in a Driftless forest near Redwing, MN, when I realized I was standing beneath an incredible theatre of oaken beauty. Leaning against a trunk and looking upwards into the branches and twigs, small immature leaves were starting to break from the buds. Almost involuntarily my breathing slowed and the meditation and kinship eased over me. 

Yes, I lifted the camera to take a few images of the canopy, and moments later trying to catch up with the rest of the tour, I found myself turning to gaze back at what was now stoic and strong old friends, taking different pictures of the oaks from various angles, even from a distant hill where the leader had taken us. I wasn’t a very attentive student, I’m afraid, although my guess was that the guide would have thoroughly understood.

The Bonanza ravines provide a home to small oak savannas that draw me in.

So the two women were back at the canvas of the Griffen oak when one said, “We looked through all your matted prints for a smaller one, something closer to our budget and couldn’t find one.”

“You see,” added the other woman, “a few months ago a dear friend of ours died of MS, and to her there was nothing more beautiful and meaningful than an old oak tree. Like this one. We were considering this as a memorial tribute to her.”

I asked if they had a few moments, that I would run down to my workbench and make them a print. As much as they seemed pleased with the gesture, there was a sense of kinship with someone I didn’t know who must have understood the lure of the beauty of such strong, stately and beautiful trees … the oaks.