MINNEAPOLIS _ Michael Sieve earned a college of fine arts degree in the early 1970s, only to land a job on the kill floor of an Iowa beef slaughterhouse.
He had dreams as a high school kid in rural Nobles County in southwest Minnesota of someday winning the federal duck stamp contest _ an ambition that still burns inside of him after a long, highly successful career of painting whitetail deer, other big game, upland birds and waterfowl.
Sieve's depiction of a rooster and hen flushing into a snowstorm from a field of dried-out corn is this year's Minnesota Pheasant Stamp. He still creates seven or eight new wildlife paintings a year and has made a name for himself around the state as a devoted bow hunter and land conservationist. At his dreamy homestead, gallery and art studio in the wooded hills east of Rushford, the Star Tribune caught up with him early this week for a rangy discussion of his outdoors life.
