b. 1958
Sculpture
Greg Woodard is a bronze and wood sculptor who currently resides in Brigham City, Utah. Growing up in Prescott, Arizona, Greg took only a few art classes in high school and is largely self-taught. While attending a local carving club, artist Lance Turner persuaded Greg to enter his decoy into a Sacramento carving show. As a result, his career blossomed. He later entered shows all over the country, including the Ward World Competition in Ocean City, MD, recognized as the most prestigious bird carving competition in the world. Ever since, he has won numerous awards and top honors throughout the country.
Experimentation, artistic growth, and new experiences have always been instrumental factors in advancing his art.
Greg has been a consistent strong voice for the importance of proper reference and total familiarity with one's subject. Absolute confidence in one's reference implies knowledge of the subject or bird from all angles, attained by acquiring measurements, studying live birds as well as skins, and researching photographs of the subject. Understanding the environment, habits, and characteristics of the bird is also crucial.
A master falconer, Greg devotes a great deal of time to his raptors and carries his love and knowledge of these powerful birds into his work. In decorative life-size wood sculpture, Greg is a five-time Best of Show winner at the Ward World Competition and the 1992 World Class winner with a preening American kestrel. In 2000, Greg also captured the World category in interpretive sculpture with a rendition of a prairie falcon chasing several swallows. To date, he is the only artist to have won both decorative and interpretive categories at the world level. He has won numerous awards at other shows and has participated in traveling exhibitions as well as the prestigious Leigh Yawkey "Birds in Art" display several years including 2005 with a life size snowy owl bronze sculpture.