[bright acoustic guitar tune]

♪

(narrator)
Fishing is a hopeful endeavor.

Think about it.

You enter
into nature's realm

with great expectation,

even if your fishing
is limited to a farm pond.

And there you make
sort of a bargain

with the Divine,

who will loan you His fish
for a while

just for the fun of it,

although one could
easily conclude

that the fish aren't having
nearly as much fun as you are,

especially if you get to fish
on a warm spring afternoon

with your grandson.

For Duane Raver,
fishing and fish

have been his way of life
and vocation

for a very long time.

He's been catching
and painting fish

for going on eight decades.

♪

If you've ever seen
magazine covers like these

over the years,

you've seen Duane Raver's art.

♪

It's little wonder
that a fish just like this

could find its way
first onto canvas

and then into print,

and wonder more that Duane
got into art at all

after hearing what
his high school art teacher

had to say back in Iowa.

"Mr. Raver,
I just don't believe

you've got a--
a future in artwork."

(narrator)
Clearly he did,

but it took awhile
for him to get the idea.

(Raver)
I was really surprised

that I had that ability.

I thought the kid
right next to me in the desk

could do exactly
the same thing I could do.

Well, obviously,
it was a gift that I was given

that most kids there
did not have.

I remember the one, uh,
that I got paid for.

The first--
my first assignment

was the Fin and Feather News ,

in Lufkin, Texas,
and I got five dollars.

I think that must have been
about 1946 or '7,

and I thought,
"Whoa! That's great."

So that was my introduction
to professional artwork.

(narrator)
By 1949,

Duane had finished school
with a degree

in fishery management
from Iowa State College

and was ready
to tackle real life.

Got a call one day
from North Carolina.

Friend of mine, uh--

we had sort of
a mutual agreement

that if he got a job
that I might be interested in,

uh, he'd let me know,
and vice versa.

Well, he was first to call.

"I'm leaving North Carolina;
come down and take my job."

The Wildlife Commission
was only, uh,

two or three years old
and kind of an infancy,

and certainly,
the fish division

needed a lot of, um,
organization.

(narrator)
The new Tar Heel
got right to work

taking stock of fish
in North Carolina's reservoirs

and as it turned out,
got to work

helping put together
the Commission's new magazine.

(man)
I think, for a long time,
Duane was the magazine.

I mean, Duane literally,

for some years,

did everything
there was to do

for the magazine.

Duane would paint the covers.

He would paint illustrations

for the inside
of the magazine.

He would, uh,
literally paste up the pages

uh, when--

when, you know,
pages had to be pasted up

and then shot,
and the negatives, uh, were--

were printed, um.

Duane did everything.

I mean, I think, really,
Duane made this magazine.

I think his paintings
made this magazine.

(Raver)
I strive for accuracy--hah!

What comes to mind
was a cover that I did

for the Wildlife magazine
of a turkey gobbler.

And, uh,
it got in print,

and about two weeks later,
I got a, uh--a communiqué

from a turkey hunter
in Florida.

"Mr. Raver,
that's a nice gobbler on there,

but it's the only I ever saw
that didn't have any spurs."

I had not put the spurs
on the gobbler,

so that was obviously
in print,

and I'll never live--
live it down,

and so I've made
some mistakes, um,

in my checkered past.

There's no question
about that.

(narrator)
After his retirement

from the Wildlife Commission
in 1979,

Raver launched himself
full time

into the freelance world.

♪

(Raver)
Fishes of the Southeast
United States--

we did 150 illustrations,

both fresh
and saltwater there.

Whoa, those have been used
and used and used,

which is great.

(narrator)
Despite his success,

Duane sometimes
seems to agree,

at least in part,

with his high school
art teacher

that he can paint this,
but he can't paint that,

and he doesn't consider
himself an artist.

(Raver)
I--I classify myself
as an illustrator

as opposed to an artist, um.

Now, you may say,

Well, I don't see
the differentiation.

Well, uh,
there is, uh,

certainly,
in my judgment, uh,

considerable difference there.

I cannot do abstracts.

I don't do portraits.

I had to learn
to do, um, waterfowl, um.

Demand--

"Hey, can you do
a goose painting

or a duck painting?"

"Well, yeah I can try,"

and that took a while to--
to develop that.

I was so into fish

that anything else
was a real challenge.

I simply had to learn--
and I'm still learning there,

so--whoa--after, whatever,
70-some years just to be sure.

Now, every day, I--
I learn something, I hope.

(narrator)
This ever-learning,
ever-fresh artist

has plenty of opportunity
to hone his technique

and paint even more
new subjects

because his daughter Diane
operates a taxidermy business

as part
of their Wake County studio.

Well, I do remember,
he would work--

paint at night

when he would come home
from work, so, um,

I would spend time there
in his--in his workroom,

and he may have had a--
a duck wing, um,

those kinds of things
that he was workin' on.

So that's a very early
memory for me.

(narrator)
And that's not
the only difference.

Having Diane so close by
has been a blessing...

both ways.

(Braswell)
It's great.

He works in this section,
and I work downstairs

in my section, um.

Even though we work, maybe,
together all day long,

we may not have a whole lot
of interaction some days,

and then other days,

he'll advise me
on bill color of ducks

or, uh, habitat material,
things like that

that he's, uh--
helps me with.

I've done a lot
of commercial deer heads

over the years,
but my, um--

my preference
was always with waterfowl.

There's so many
different species,

different poses--
flying, standing, uh--

a lot more interesting.

♪

(narrator)
Both father and daughter
consult the real thing

from time to time,

including a stash
of bird wings

Duane keeps
in a file cabinet.

When painting something
as elaborate

and finely detailed
as this mother wood duck

and her hatchlings,

he often refers
to actual specimens,

much like Audubon did
for his life studies.

♪

Now let's finish up
with a story

plus a keen observation.

This is an original
watercoloring

that Duane Raver did in 1946

when he was a student
at Iowa State College.

And this was found in a--

in a--a pile
of belongings, uh,

from one of his college mates
back in--in those days.

And, uh, the daughter

of the college friend
found this,

didn't know
who Duane Raver was,

googled the name,

and found out
that he was an artist and--

and an illustrator
famous in North Carolina,

contacted Duane, and--

and asked what to do
with this original artwork.

Duane said,

"Send it to the Wildlife
Resources Commission,

and they'll be proud
to display it,"

and this is one
of our proudest items

we're glad to have
from, uh, 1946.

Even today, uh,
when I go across the state,

or sometimes people
will call in

or send a letter in,

and they will talk about
seeing Duane's paintings

on the cover
when they were growin' up

or the fact that they have
Duane's paintings

in their house now,

and how much pleasure
they get from that,

and I--
I think a large part of that

goes back to them seein'
those paintings on a cover

when they were children,

and, you know,
Duane's paintings

evoke, I think, a nostalgia,
uh, for those people.

I--I mean,
I know they do for me.

It's hard to think
about wildlife

in North Carolina

and not think
about Duane Raver.

[harmonica concludes
guitar tune]

♪