Ep. 622 - Crafting Legacy: Jett Brunet on Carving and Competition

In this episode, host Katie Burke sits down with acclaimed wildlife artist and carver Jett Brunet. Jett shares insights into his early life, growing up under the influence of his equally renowned father, a master carver. He reflects on the pressures and inspirations of living up to such a legacy, discussing how his artistic journey has evolved over the years. From his initial motivations to his current creative process, Jett offers a candid look at what has shaped him as an artist and how his passion for the craft has transformed.

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Host

Katie Burke

Ducks Unlimited Podcast Collectibles Host

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Katie Burke: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. This is your host, Katie Burke. And today on the show, I have artist Jett Brunet here. Hi, Jett. How are you?

Jett Brunet: Hello, Katie. I'm doing good.

Katie Burke: Well, this is my first video, so I'm really excited to finally have you. Do you remember that I called you like three years ago for you to be on the podcast?

Jett Brunet: I remember something about that. And my thought was, wow, I don't know if I can do that. I'm like, I'm not even sure what that means, but it's probably something I should stay away from. And then I became more familiar with exactly what's going on about that, and I thought, man, I probably should have said, absolutely, I'm ready to do it, you know? I'm glad you called back, and let's try this.

Katie Burke: Yeah, you know, you're not alone. I found a lot of… I'd say carvers are artists more so than collectors, but, well, I don't know, probably about the same, that are scared to do it. And I'm like, but I'm not very scary, so it'll be fine.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, you're not as scary as I thought you'd be. On the phone, you were much more frightening.

Katie Burke: Too much energy?

Jett Brunet: Yeah, just a little bit. No, it's all good. Yeah, as an artist, you kind of like to I like to stay in my own little environment and be creative and just work with your thoughts of what you're going to do next. And it's just a totally different thing being in front of people and have to articulate what you do and how you do it, where you actually have to stop and think, well, how do I do that?

Katie Burke: Yeah. And then I would think it probably doesn't come naturally like that. To think people might be interested in your life story and how that came about, that's hard to think about too, in some ways. Yeah.

Jett Brunet: You know, it's kind of an odd situation that you come from this little hometown and carving decoys with your dad and your brother. And next thing you know, people really love the idea of it and look at what you're doing and are interested in what you do and how you do it. And coming from a family of carvers, it's, you know, it's kind of a thing that people can relate to, you know, keep the family unit. together and three guys in the same world of making a living doing artwork. So, it's pretty cool.

Katie Burke: Yeah, you do have a bit of an advantage in that way, right?

Jett Brunet: Oh, absolutely.

Katie Burke: Yeah, you had your dad. So, let's talk about that a little bit. So, let's go back to the beginning. So, was your dad carving before you were born? And then, or did he start after? Like, when did that all kind of, that timeline?

Jett Brunet: Actually, he started carving as a young teenager, maybe 14 or so, 15 years old from what him and I talked later, you know, about when he began. And it was just carving, carving decoys to hunt with. Man, that was in the fifties before plastics, you know, and back then in the bayou where we, you know, people hunted birds for food. It wasn't even about a sport, you know, and lived out in the country and, you know, you could carve a nice decoy. Well, that may lure in the birds, you know.

Katie Burke: Then was he seeing carvers local carvers around?

Jett Brunet: Yes. Yes, there were there were a family of VJ carvers who had a big influence on him He's the first Bruni to be an artist But he did learn from cousins the VJ family Cadiz and O'Dea and Jimmy VJ who lived in our area and they had a big influence on him and And roughly in the early 60s, he made a hunting rig of decoys that are very stylized, very unique. And I still own some today, all of them actually, me and my brother. And I hunted over them when I became old enough to hunt, maybe in the late 60s, something like that. So I actually hunted over the birds that he carved. five, 10 years prior, and still have those birds in my collection now.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's really special. That's funny that he was by the… I like how you say Vizier. I can't even say it.

Jett Brunet: Vizier. Vizier.

Katie Burke: Yeah, I can't do it. I always say it, Vizier. I pronounce the Z too much, I guess. Vizier. But yeah, that's cool. So then when do you think you started really taking note of what he was doing. Were you immediately drawn to it?

Jett Brunet: As far back as I can remember, yeah. And I'd just sit there and watch him and just something about it. Watching your dad do anything was great, but creating these things. He'd start with a block of wood and then his duck would emerge, his decoy would emerge. about nine years old when I think he felt that I was just about old enough to hand a sharp knife, a small knife. He gave me a little block of wood and I started carving miniatures, little baby three-inch sized duck decoys, you know? And that's where it began for me. And I just progressed until I could carve them full size, you know, bigger decoys and stuff. So yeah, I've been doing this a long time, 51 years now, I've been carving.

Katie Burke: So when did you learn about award competitions?

Jett Brunet: In the early 70s, my dad was such an outstanding carver that by the mid-late 60s or whenever plastic decoys came around, the wooden ones became obsolete. But some of the better artists, better carvers kept producing them because they were beautiful and people all of a sudden liked them, wanted to collect them, not to work with as art to put on a shelf. So my dad kept doing decoys and making them a little more decorative, a little more refined, and just progressing the particular art form. And he got the notice of a lot of different people who were interested in that kind of thing, and word got down that there was a World Championships of Carving called the Ward Foundation, named after the Ward brothers in Ocean City, Maryland. So they said, Tan, you got to get up there, man. You're the best carver we've ever seen. And these guys are competing for the world's best. You need to take part of it. So that was 1975 is when he first sent birds up there to hunt with. I mean, to be judged with. You know, by 1977, he became world champion for the first time. So a couple of years before, he wouldn't fly. He still never got on a plane. He said if God would have wanted him to fly, he'd have been born with plane tickets. So anyway, by 1977 we made the drive up there and the first time he saw the competition and entered and won the world title.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's funny because though he was entering the first two years not seeing what his competition was.

Jett Brunet: He was just entering what he… Right, and that's absolutely right. And friends of his who brought the decoys up for him would come back and say, okay, Ted, what you're doing is great, but this is kind of what they're doing and what the judges are looking for. And they'd come back and he'd get the feedback of that and a couple of photographs and say, okay, this is the direction I've got to go in. And on the second year, he closed the gap and he was right in the running, like maybe top five. And then finally the third year where it clicked and he was there and then it happened. Yeah. So before he ever actually saw what he was competing against in person, he, he won.

Katie Burke: That's impressive on a different level. Like, cause you know, you're not having, you don't having that influence. He's doing it kind of purely from what He thinks should be done and then he's not getting this because I mean, let's be honest the photograph in 1976 Wasn't that great of a photograph?

Jett Brunet: It was a polaroid. Yeah It was bad bad lighting and uh, and uh, but boy, that's what? Important what you just said there. It's what really made him stand out, you know, uh, He wasn't following anyone. He wasn't looking at what someone else was doing and trying to duplicate it because he didn't know what they were doing. All he knew was to try to take a block of wood and make it look as much of a duck as possible. So he invented these ways of woodburning. Actually, he'd heat up ice picks that he would sharpen and woodburn with that and paint with oils. And he just developed this very unique style And once he got the details down, and once he got the criteria in line with what the judges were looking for, it just clicked. And he just introduced a whole new style of work that became world class.

Katie Burke: Yeah. That's crazy. He heated up ice picks.

Jett Brunet: I didn't know that. I remember. I watched him do it.

Katie Burke: So when did he get the actual tool? How long did he have to heat up his stuff before?

Jett Brunet: It was probably, I'd say maybe four or five years later when he kept trying to find a better way, easier way to do it. Ended up with soldering irons. Yeah. And he'd make the tips out of brass. But at the beginning, and I'm a little boy watching at our kitchen table- That's what I was going to say. Yeah. A little engineer. Yep. There was a fire stove right there and he'd make three ice picks he had, and he'd sharpen the points, make it like a little knife blade, and he'd stack them up against the flame. And he'd pick one of them that was red hot, and he'd wood burn. He'd burn on the wood, and I could still to this day smell the smoke of the wood burning, it was fabulous. And when it would cool off, he'd put it back on the fire, he'd grab the next one. So while he didn't have to stop and wait, it just kept, you know, going and moving along. And he had hands like magic. Boy, he could turn an ice… He'd make a block of wood look like a duck with an ice pick, really. A pocket knife and an ice pick. That's crazy. Yeah. And then they evolved to the point where now we have these highly delicate burning pens with temperature control.

Katie Burke: Right. But you wouldn't have had that probably if it wasn't for him.

Jett Brunet: Right. Yeah. He was such a big part of it of pushing the detail you could add to a block of wood to make it look realistic. Man, he was just on the front of it.

Katie Burke: Was he using Tupelo gum in that beginning or was he using- It was a little both.

Jett Brunet: It was a lot of cypress root, which was the hunting- It would have been normal in South Louisiana.

Katie Burke: Yeah.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, and then some of that was a little soft, whereas he discovered the Tupelo tree was a much firmer piece of wood and still without a lot of grain. So, you know, you can put a lot of texture and hide the fact that, disguise the fact that it's a piece of wood. But it's only a certain area of the Tupelo used. It grows along in swamps with cypress trees. And as it gets closer to water, the base of the tree bells out, bulbs. So the top of the tree is hard, is useless. The roots are pretty nice, soft like cypress root, but that middle section between right at the waterline and maybe three feet above, that's ideal. That's the perfect carving.

Katie Burke: Okay. So did he bring that material also to the competition?

Jett Brunet: Or other people? Once they found out the fact that that wood was very easy to carve, virtually without grain, and light enough to float. Because these decoys, even back then, had to be floated, had to be judged just like a duck in the water. And even to this day, the finest carvers in the world who carve world-class decoys, they're judged in the water. They have to float just like the live bird. Well, before that, a lot of the carvers used basswood and cedar, where the decoys had to be hollowed out, then put a bottom on to float properly. Whereas a tupelo was not only grainless, it was light enough to float, a good piece of tupelo. So you can make a solid decoy, which was a big advantage. Beth Dombkowski Yeah, for decorative, right, would make a huge advantage.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's really interesting. I knew about your dad, but I didn't think about that he brought all those. innovations to it. They had to change to keep up with him.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, no, and I watched it happen, which was amazing to me, just from the hunting decoy that I hunted over with him to the progression of it going to. ice picks and feather work and detail and then exposed primaries, lifted primaries and open tail and delicate bills and open bills and all this. At some point, the competition was promoting the fact that we want these decoys as realistic as possible, okay? They no longer have to be sturdy. We want you to make a duck as close as you can get to it, you know?

Katie Burke: So when did that change, that realism change?

Jett Brunet: Right at the time when he, right in the mid-70s. So one of his first little hiccups was when he first entered, his kneecaps were still sturdy. And they had just made the change from, I believe, between 1975 and 1977, where they said, OK, no longer has to be sturdy. Now we're looking for realism. So the first thing he did in 1975, he entered these birds where the primaries were still sturdy. And that was one of his, one of the knocks. He said, okay, Tan, you need to, you need to forget about it being like a working decoy. So the next year he made him more delicate. And about a third year he clicked. So that was right as he got into it is when they made that transition.

Katie Burke: Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. So, when did you… You're carving, obviously, through all this time, but when did you first enter the competition?

Jett Brunet: I was, I believe, 12 years old when I started entering the novice class. And up at the world championship, there's a category for teenage carvers. And I was fortunate enough to win the best teenage carver twice when I was young. And that just helped motivate me to keep going in that direction. My dad was a world champion, and now I'm showing promise.

Katie Burke: Well, nothing helps a kid more than telling them they're good at something. Oh, man, absolutely. Absolutely. But kind of just like, oh, I'm good at it.

Jett Brunet: Not just my grandma saying it. Yeah. Three judges saying it.

Katie Burke: Yeah, it means a lot. It really can change your future. So do you remember what your first duck was that you first entered? 10-12?

Jett Brunet: I did a hanging canvas back, miniature, hanging by his foot against a cypress board. And I believe it placed third in my first competition in the novice class. Man, I was so excited. You did a dead mount on your first one. Yeah, that's pretty weird. That was my first competition, Barrett.

Katie Burke: You were really like, I want to do this the really hard way. I don't even know it.

Jett Brunet: It made me try something like that. I've never done one since. Really?

Katie Burke: That's funny. So to go through that transition. So you're carving, I guess, just as with your dad and like for fun during those times. And when do you make the transition that this is going or when do you realize this is going to be a possible career for you?

Jett Brunet: Well, it took a little while. It wasn't my goal. It was just my goal of trying to compete and become a world champion like my dad was. That was my goal. And my dad owned the Lumby Yard. And on afternoons after school and in summer, I'd work in the Lumby Yard. But I'd carve with him at night. After he'd shut down the Lumby Yard, we'd spend all night in the shop carving, you know? I'd go to school, he'd go to work. We'd get back, back to carving, preparing for the world championships every April. As I moved up the ranks from teenage carver to novice to intermediate and by- So how does that, just one second, how does that work age-wise for the competition?

Katie Burke: Okay. Just to give us, because I'm not really sure.

Jett Brunet: I believe it's up to 16 years old, you can win the youth award. Okay. Any beginner puts a decoy in, no matter age or anything, you're considered a novice. Okay. After a couple of years of novice, after you've maybe won a few awards where they say, okay, now you've progressed, you need to move up to the intermediate class. Back then it was called the amateur class. So you could stay in the amateur class as long as you wanted until you start selling your work. Once you started selling, then you were considered a pro and went into the open class. So I progressed from the novice where I won. I was very fortunate. I won the highest level at the teenager, the highest level at novice and intermediate. And by 1982 is when I decided, okay, I had collectors wanting my work. I'll start selling my work. Was still working part-time at the lumberyard with my dad. In 1983, he decided we're selling the Lum Yard. He wanted to be a full-time world carver. He had won two of his world championships part-time. I mean, he was working the Lum Yard all day, and it was a hobby of his. And once he realized, man, there's a living to be made doing this stuff, you know, carving wood instead of carrying it, you know? And so he decided, man, he wanted to be a full-time artist. And I just followed along, not knowing if I could do it or not. But once they sold Lum Yard in 1983, was my first entry into the open class against all the professional carvers. And I went up there and left the show with quite a few commissions. And I figured, okay, my job's gone, Lum Yard's gone, but I got collectors who want my carvings. So I'll sell a few carvings, I'll fill in the commissions, till collectors, you know, till they stop buying my stuff, then I'll get a job. Yeah. Well, so far, so good. Yeah. Worked out fine.

Katie Burke: Still unemployed. Yeah, still unemployed. Okay. So, yeah. And you won in 19. What was the first win? You just said it. I just forgot.

Jett Brunet: When I went in 1983 was my first entry in the open class.

Katie Burke: Okay, and when was your first win in the open class?

Jett Brunet: I won my first ever blue ribbon that year with a redhead and I won best diving duck with the redhead. Then it went on to best of show and I ended up second best of show. In your first year? Yeah, my first year I almost won the whole thing. Very, very, so it was just a very big moment for me to hit the ground as a professional. Then I had my dad's name, you know, being a brunette collector, wanted his work, and all of a sudden, the promise I showed kind of proved itself to be, okay, man, he's heading in that direction, and now he's competing against the best carvers in the world. And doing well, yeah. More than holding his own, yeah, almost won the top award the first year.

Katie Burke: So when does Jude come into all this?

Jett Brunet: Jude was six years younger than you. He didn't have the desire to do it as a young boy.

Katie Burke: Well, you know, he's the youngest. That goes for it.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, and he didn't really start until later, you know, late teens. Okay. You know, early 20s before he really started carving. And he's so talented, just like my dad. I mean, it was so natural for the two of them. And he picked it up so quickly and became a world-class carver. very fast, you know, and I progressed, I'd been carving a long time. And, you know, three years after I entered open class or two years, I won a first world championship. I was 21 years old, still the youngest to ever win the world pairs, which is so, you know, I'm very proud of that. There was another guy at 21 years old, a different category, a different division, life size, not the decoys. So it's typically not a young guy's deal, you know, you need so much. You know, so many years of really trawling there and learning and experience, you know. And it was typically carved by men who were making hunting decoys and now progressed to making them more decorative. There just wasn't a whole lot of young guys doing it. You had to learn from a guy like my dad.

Katie Burke: Yeah.

Jett Brunet: I just had a real good head start.

Katie Burke: Yeah. And you, yeah, and you're in the right, you had your dad and y'all are both in the right part of the country. Right. Okay. This is something I meant to ask you about this earlier, but now that we're recording, but okay. As I've heard some of it. So were you there, you had to have been, you had to have been there at the ward when the whole like state war thing was going on. Can you like describe what that was like? What was that? I forget. Was it Wisconsin? Was that the other state that it was like the war against like y'all would win back and forth? Yeah.

Jett Brunet: I mean, look there. Okay. The two big shows that I went to, there was an Eastern waterfowl festival in November. exhibit, invitation only, and my dad was invited to the first one. Ended up not going there till, you know, second or third show, because again, he owned a lumbyard. He worked at a lumbyard. You know, and then it became routine for us to, in November, go to the Waterfowl Festival. where you met collectors interested in your work, you sell your work. Six months later was the Ward World Championships in Maryland. So you had six months to prepare for each big show. At one show, you could become a champion and become a well-known carver. And six months later, you're exhibiting just an hour away from the competition where it was in Eastern Maryland to Ocean City, Maryland. And it was just a nice circular thing going on. There was a few local shows, but those were where the best carvers in the world were, and where you can become best known, you know? And I was fortunate enough as a young man to meet Lem Ward, one of my first trips up to the world championship. You know, there's pictures of me shaking hands with Lem Ward, which is incredible.

Katie Burke: Everyone I've ever heard, I've talked to that met him, said he was like a very unassuming- Oh, wow. No.

Jett Brunet: No, you couldn't believe it. He was just the most modest looking man and talking and just brilliant. But he never, I mean, you had to be around him or look at his work to realize the genius of him, you know, never boastful and just a plain old country boy. And he was a poet, one of my favorite. And he always writes the poems. Oh, he'd write poems on the bottom of his decoys. Oh, and my dad just loved that about him, because we came from 700 miles apart, but him and my dad both grew up in the swamps, saltwater, him in the Chesapeake, us around the Gulf of Mexico, grew up as country boys, and got to the top of the profession from two different ends of the country, and all of a sudden, there they were.

Katie Burke: Now, they're very interesting, and then just their whole evolution too. But you're right, that area of the country, I don't think, I didn't realize. that it was as rural as it is, until I went this past year. You just don't think about it, because Baltimore's right there. You just don't think about them having any rural swamp area, but it's- Right.

Jett Brunet: You just get a little bit- It's as marshy as it is. Outside the city in there, you're around the Chesapeake and the marsh, and so many ducks, such a big flyway, like down in Louisiana, the Mississippi flyway. You had all them birds, and that's where the carvers came from.

Katie Burke: Okay, so I have a I have a question about that. So yeah, I just brought that so when You're like, I guess, I don't know, at what point, are you always looking at live birds during this whole thing? Yes. You are. Okay. So how, I'm guessing, did your dad kind of start you on that, like going to the live bird and- Yes.

Jett Brunet: Yeah. Okay. We'd raise live birds to study from. Yes. We had this big pen area where we had a pond, actually. The place where the ducks would swim and clean themselves was this giant dugout pirogue, Cypress dugout pirogue, that we put in the middle of the pen and fill it up with fresh water. And I could, to this day, just watch those ducks screaming and cleaning themselves in a big old pirogue. And we just felt like, boy, you can get just more, much more accuracy and much more of a pure understanding of the duck if he's five feet from you. You know? I think what's very important and what my dad was so great at and I try to be is when you study a duck on a pond, when that bird just lands in the pond and you don't even feel like shooting him, you just want to look at him, you know? You can get a good idea of exactly the profile and the shape and the dimensions of a duck without worrying about detail. So to this day, when I carve a bird, I want to make sure that even before I put on paint, that anyone who knows ducks could pick out what species it is. So I'm way more interested in that. I'm catching the anatomy and the confirmation of any particular species right on the money. So stunning them out in the field was just as important. as doing the final work on the detail work. And both in competition, both are equally important. You can't focus too much on one or the other. I mean, you could wood burn and paint a block of wood that looks just like a feather. And when you back off, it still looks like a block of wood. So before you put the icing on the cake, you want to make sure the cake's right.

Katie Burke: Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. And also at that time, you can't do… Like we said, the pictures are awful. You're not going to study photography the same way, so you're going to have to have a bird.

Jett Brunet: As this art form grew, more and more people realized, okay, man, carvers need reference. Let's get reference out there. So books were being written and good photos are now being taken of live birds and birds in pens, closeups. Once you understand the basic anatomy of a bird, then you could learn to read a photograph and understand certain contours, certain shapes, especially black and white photographs. You may see something in there that you're actually not seeing from a live bird sitting there, you know? Little muscles, little things that bring out that particular species. because it gets frozen. You can get a look at it without the duck's head moving around. So the combination of studying them in the field, having live birds right in front of you, having a skin amount of a bird to get feathers, colors precise, and then black and white photos, which can show a little character, a little different, unique look about a duck that you had not even seen before. Combine all of that and When I work, I am surrounded by reference. I have every photo, every different measurement and angles of whatever species I'm working on. If I can get my hand on three skins to paint a bird, I'll use that because birds vary in color and size and shape.

Katie Burke: They're not like people, they don't look the same. All right. Let's take a break real quick and we'll be right back. When you have the idea, right? When you have the idea of the bird in your head, right? I'm guessing you have a vision of what you want. Yes. Is your next step, do you immediately copy it down on like a piece of wood or do you look for the… What is your next step from the vision of the bird and then where do you go next?

Jett Brunet: Once I start, I start with the idea of, okay, what particular species I'm doing. Okay. And I'm making a life-size floating decorative decoy, okay? Now, first decision I make is do I want it animated? Do I want it nice and simple? Where am I headed with this? I look at it as a work of art. You know, I'm looking at trying to create something that I hope people will look at and enjoy for hundreds of years. So I'm trying to make a piece of work that's not just a duck decoy. It's something a little bit beyond, like an Elma Crow or a Ward Brother. You know, those are meant to hunt with. They're works of art, man. You can look at, okay, there's something special, you know. So I have that in mind. And if I decide I'm doing an animated bird, maybe a preening bird, something like that, I will start looking at reference photos. I will start, and I'm talking, I've got thousands of photos in books and, you know, everything you can imagine. And once I get an idea of, okay, the type of pose I want to do, I start visualizing it, okay? And sometimes I'll put it down on paper, sketch a couple of different ideas I have. And once I've come up with precisely what I have in mind, I picture it, I visualize it. And man, you know, it's what I'm good at is looking at a block of wood and seeing the end result. I'm a sculptor. I've learned how to wood burn and paint, but I'm essentially a sculptor. At nine years old, I could see in that block of wood. That's what I do. So once I get, man, I get the idea of exactly what's going on and it's in my head and I've refined it, then I just head in that direction.

Katie Burke: So do you put a pattern on a block of wood? I do.

Jett Brunet: Okay. I do. I'll sketch out to make sure, you know, I'll sketch on a big sketch pad and the perfect dimensions, the width, the height, the thickness of the build, the length of it, everything as accurate as possible on paper. And once I get it down, and I don't do a lot of refined work, you know, it's not a very detailed sketch, but it's the basic size and shape. And I try to put whatever character I have in my mind of that particular look of that bird, I try to put it on paper. Just get to where I'm like, OK, that's what I visualize. It's on paper now. Yeah. And then I'll take that and transfer it to a nice square block of Duplo. cut it out with the bandsaw, and I still start every carving I do just like the carvers on the bayou did, like my dad, with a hatchet, a sharp hatchet, and just cut out, and I use as little power tools as possible. I love the traditional. chipping away, and take a nice sharp knife and carve away where there's no dust and no noise. You know, you can just sit there, relax, and just feel the knife sliding along the tubulon. It's just, it brings me back to how I watched my dad do it. And now, no matter what kind of art I create, whether it's a sculpture or a highly refined decorative bird, I still start with a hatchet and a knife.

Katie Burke: Yeah. Okay. So that's interesting. I was wondering how you did it, because wow, it would differ. But it doesn't really differ from a working decoy carver at all. It's really the same.

Jett Brunet: Absolutely the same.

Katie Burke: Same thing. Just more detail. Yeah. You just keep going. That's it. Just go further. Okay. This is a super technical paint question, though our audience may get annoyed with me, but I'm curious. We're just going to use this one here, though an eider's not a great example because he's pretty two-toned. When you first lay paint on your decoy, I'm guessing you're having to build quite a lot of color. You're slowly building. What is the process and how long does it take to slowly build those colors? Like, the eider's not a great example. I would think the, like, let's say like a hen, like that would be, yeah, that you're going to have to build a lot of color there. So how long…

Jett Brunet: Well, I learned how to paint with both mediums, oils and acrylics. And it would be a different process for you, right? Yeah, absolutely. But I essentially learned the basics of painting with oil paints. I start from the ground up and just put the basic colors and tones in a stain, sort of like a stain. Like the first layer of paint I'll put on a block of wood, you'll still see the wood underneath. You'll just start seeing the basic color show up, the basic overall look color of a hen mallard. If you back off 10 feet from a live hen mallard, the color you see, that beige or that sienna, that's the color I'm looking for, okay? Once I get that layer on, I'll decide, okay, the wood's showing through, it's a little too honey, it's a little too cool, it's a little too warm, make adjustments on my next layer of paint and thin down artist oils and make another thin layer of stain over it.

Katie Burke: It's thin, thin the whole time, right?

Jett Brunet: Yep, and then gradually build layers at a time where the oils are just soaking right into that burn marks of the Tupelo and not clogging up the finish work and gradually building color. I do not put any more paint than you absolutely have to, to get where you're going. You know, you don't paint a lot and then change the colors. You know, you just get there gradually. And it takes time.

Katie Burke: I mean, do you have to take back paint at times, too? Like, if you paint on, do you ever have to wipe back?

Jett Brunet: I've never had to do that. But I can see, yeah, absolutely. With acrylics, I've had that happen.

Katie Burke: What do you thin it with?

Jett Brunet: The acrylics is just pure water, but when I do oils, it's a little bit of mineral spirits and copal.

Katie Burke: So it's more like a paint thinner.

Jett Brunet: Yes. Yeah. Okay. Like linseed oil type stuff. Cool.

Katie Burke: I know that's super technical, but I just was curious. Well, if you see the working guys, they paint thin with a paint thinner, which I was like, I wouldn't think it worked that way because you're doing it in such a detail, so you'd have to continually… Yeah, I know.

Jett Brunet: I'm putting richer oils in there.

Katie Burke: Are you letting it dry and then painting? Are you ever doing wet on wet? Are you just continuing?

Jett Brunet: With oils, what I would typically do, and for competitions where it entered world pairs to become a champion, they have to make a male and a female. So what I would typically do is paint on one decoy a day. I'd paint on a drake all day. I'd put it aside. The next day, I'd paint on a hen. By the second day, I go back to the Drake, and it's generally pretty dry. The Siennas, the Umbers, they dry pretty good. The blacks and the whites, they don't typically. So you have to add sometimes some drying agents, cobalt medium, which will help, not cobalt, cobalt medium helps to dry it. So, typically by, you know, you wait two days, now you're ready to paint on that drake again, and vice versa. You go back and forth.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that's interesting. I never really thought about that. I was going to say, you have to, because I mean, because with the nature of the detail, you couldn't really do that much when I'm wet, because you'd be so worried about it muddying up.

Jett Brunet: You don't want to get muddy. That's the deal with oils. If you get too carried away and try to work too fast, it'll muddy up, and it's hard to clean them once you do that.

Katie Burke: And then you're having that problem with it stacking too much, right? Exactly, exactly. How long does it take you to paint one?

Jett Brunet: Wow.

Katie Burke: What takes longer, carving or painting?

Jett Brunet: That's a good question. It's about three eagles from the carving to the texturing to the painting, you know, it's roughly.

Katie Burke: And it takes about four months, right?

Jett Brunet: I typically carve longer because I think I enjoy that more, you know, and I'm a reduction carver. So once you remove a chip of wood, there's no going back, you know, whereas you make a mistake with paint, you can cover it, you can repaint things. Carving, you know, once you take a chip off, it's done. And what I learned from my father and the carvers from the bayous, our birds are all out of one piece, one from a single block, whereas a lot of carvers glue the heads on separate and the wings on separate. So that process is really slow, and that's what I love the most. I just love carving, sculpting.

Katie Burke: Yeah, yeah. No, it makes sense, and your birds definitely show that you like carving, yeah. But though, you won't give yourself enough credit, but your paint is probably my favorite.

Jett Brunet: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

Katie Burke: It's something about the softness to it that it feels very real. Oh. But, so, okay. Now, so you did the, so how many world championships, you won five, correct?

Jett Brunet: Yes. And what were those years? Yes. I won in 1985, my first world pairs championship. And then I want to get an 87. Then I quit competing in world-class competitions because at the time it was a purchase award. So if you want a championship, The Ward Foundation bought your decoys from you. They ended up in the museum, which was just the greatest honor there was. But as my birds became more valuable, it got to the point where I would actually lose money by winning. And that happened to a lot of the top carvers. We realized, okay, man, I need to make money at this. Winning championships are great, but… So once I got out of the pairs championships, I just started carving single decoys. And every year they pick best of show, which is essentially the best decoy in the world. And that became my goal, and I won that nine times. And that's when I decided to, you know, retire from decorative decoy carving.

Katie Burke: So what year was your last one?

Jett Brunet: 2000. 2000. 24 years ago, yeah. Oh, wow. That was my last competition. I had achieved all the goals I had set for myself and decided, okay, now it's time to

Katie Burke: So at what point did you switch over to doing, when did you start doing more interpretive stuff?

Jett Brunet: Okay, it was, you know, I went a period of year, I mean, seven or eight years getting completely away from decoy shows. I just stopped going to competitions. And in that period of time, I started doing these sculptures, these interpretive type wood sculptures with no detail. And I just went back to what's natural to me, which is sculpting, you know, get away from all the many hours spent detailing and go back to what I believe is the true essence of the of the art form is the shape and the design and the beauty of a classic decoy with no paint at all. I mean, you can find a Ward brother without a drop of paint on it, and it's a work of art. So I felt, I thought I could do that. I could bring a block of wood to life without any detail at all. And that's much more fun to me, much more creative. I am not, you know, I don't have to follow these tight guidelines of accuracy to the millimeter.

Katie Burke: Yeah, that brings up another question. So I'm guessing, so what was the time period? Did you take a break between going to the interpretive stuff before or did you immediately go there?

Jett Brunet: What I did was I sort of blended in between. Once I got away from the decorative competition, I started doing original decorative decoys for reproduction for Ducks Unlimited. I blended that along with doing these wood sculptings and cut to 30 years after my first championship. I entered in the interpretive championship and won three in a row. And that ends up me getting the same record as my father, five-time world champion, winning the last three in a row and leaving on his terms. He quit competing to let me and my brother in. He was so good, he could have won 20 more championships. He really was that good. But he just said, OK, you guys go ahead. So I feel like I'm done with competition. Last year was my last year ever. I won my third in a row, fifth overall like my dad, and it's like, okay, now get back to something.

Katie Burke: So I guess my deeper question is, okay, when you were getting towards the end of your more decorative stuff, were you finding, I don't know, I mean, maybe you weren't, but were you finding that, were you losing some of the love and drive from having to do that? Was that getting to you?

Jett Brunet: Oh, absolutely. I had set certain goals for myself. I wanted to win these specific competitions and a certain amount of them. And I didn't want to get away from the competition until I had achieved those goals. But the last few years of carving, to try to get to where I wanted to, a few years of competing, what happened was the the relief of not losing got greater than the joy of winning. And I wanted to stay in it. I wanted to finish my career with certain accomplishments. So I knew before I moved on, I needed to finish up the way I started. But the love had gone out of it. I mean, I went from a young boy excited about competition and trying to win to getting there and just hoping I didn't lose. And that it just got to where, okay, man, it's time to move on.

Katie Burke: Yeah, your creative, the creative side of it's been stifled out, right? Absolutely. It's been snuffed out. And so, yeah, so I will have a question too, because I've talked with a second, I've talked with a few people, but like, And did, when you got those goals, were you like at peace with it, or did it bring you what you wanted?

Jett Brunet: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, okay. You know, there was certain things that no other carver had accomplished in competition, and I set my sights on them, and it was very, very rewarding. And you were able to enjoy it? Oh yeah, oh yeah. And once I moved on from the decorative competition, I left it saying, wow, done it, done everything I could have done. That's great.

Katie Burke: I don't think that's like that for everybody.

Jett Brunet: No, I was very fortunate that again, I got started early. I had the best teacher in the world and I had a certain drive and certain things that I wanted to accomplish. Being I wasn't competing in the world, the championships and the pairs anymore, there was still great accomplishments to be had with single decoys, winning best decoy in the world, you know? And then toward the end, it got to where, OK, if you can make a feather, if you can take a block of wood, wood burn it and paint it so accurately that a person actually has to touch it to believe it's not a feather, OK, when you get to that level, Where else are you going to go with that? You know, I made a feather as good as I can. You know, let's do something else. Let's get back to sculpture. Let's bring a piece of wood to life with no feathers, with no paint, you know? And that's much more fun, much more interesting.

Katie Burke: Well, you can tell a story, right? Absolutely. You're not just making a realistic duck now, you get to tell a story through sculpture and through your media. You're absolutely right. And your work shows that, like you're telling a story with each piece.

Jett Brunet: And you can go in so many different directions. And you can express yourself. Exactly. And as an artist, it just… now I'm hitting my stride. It's like, wow, now I'm doing what I do best. What I've always done best is sculpting. And it's very rewarding. And again, to start a project and within a month or six weeks to have a nice piece of art done that you got into, you did it, and you can move on without spending seven or eight months on one decoy. And the last few weeks of painting, you just can't wait to get it finished. Just because you don't want to do it anymore. Whereas these sculptures, man, I just can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done. And that comes pretty quick, you know, depending on the size or the absolute design. but it's just freer. As an artist, it's like, wow, that's what I was meant to do.

Katie Burke: Are you doing your interpretive pieces, are they all still one piece? Yes. Yes. And even the big ones? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Jett Brunet: So one piece. All carved from one solid block of wood and all started with a hatchet.

Katie Burke: You're giving yourself some of the same limitations.

Jett Brunet: Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah.

Katie Burke: When you say it that way, right. Yeah. I only did it because I was being mean, but okay. So because this is the Ducks Unlimited podcast, we should probably talk about Ducks Unlimited. So this is the decoy of the year that's here on the table for 2025. Yes. Correct. Exactly. Yeah. Jude's is right now. And yours was the year before that? Yes. Correct. All right, so how, I don't even know the answer to this and this is sad because I should. So how did you start this? I mean, how did this program come to start where you were doing the decoy of the year?

Jett Brunet: I mean, they've been having decoys in the package for a long time, and 24 years ago now is when I submitted my first decoy, and it was selected as a decoy in the package. And about after the 10th year in a row that I had a decoy in the package, they came along and decided, well, we got a gun of the year, we got the knife of the year, we got the print of the year, maybe we should have the decoy of the year. each year I would have the decoy year, along with maybe another bird. Like in the past several years, I've had two birds in the package. And for the first eight times I had the decoy year, then my brother came along, Jude, also a world champion, two-time world champion, and submitting some of his work. So he's had the decoy of the year a couple of times now. So it's just been something I was so fortunate to meet up with Ducks Unlimited just when I was getting away from competition and not worrying about the stress of judges deciding if you're the exact color or the right size and all these criteria they use to judge decorative decoys. All of a sudden, my carvings went more But more toward the art and stylized realm of art, which still being very accurate, trying to make the bird very accurate, and something that hunters going to banquets would like, and people who know ducks would like, and so far, so good. 24 years in a row have had a deco in the package.

Katie Burke: Yeah. And you have to think, not even does it just… I mean, it's good for you as well and your artwork particularly, but you're also, I mean, you're introducing a whole nother audience to decorative decoys that, I mean, I would say, and this is disappointing in a lot of ways, but it isn't for decorative because more people who hunt waterfowl when they think of a carved decoy, they're going to think decorative. They're not going to think working decoys. Half people don't know that people still carve decoys to hunt over. But that has a lot to do with it, is right there, because they see them at Duck's Limit Banquets and things like that. They get that opportunity. So you're introducing this audience that may not have known about what decoratives are, And now they are interested in it and they, I don't even, I wonder how many of them don't even realize that they are hand carved to begin with. Yeah, I mean, you know. I bet there's a good many people who don't even realize.

Jett Brunet: I would think so because up until years ago when we started submitting my work and people at these banquets at the Ducks and Lemon started seeing this stuff. They probably had not seen decorative decoys before. They were hunting hunters, you know, and the world championships of carving was very separate from the Ducks and Lemon hunter, you know, people. And I just think We got to put the two together now and it's introducing a whole new world to hunters. And man, Deckard Eagle.

Katie Burke: And then, I mean, obviously technology makes this possible because like, I mean, we had our first print of the year in the 70s for artists of the year. But you couldn't, there was definitely a time where this was impossible that you couldn't have a replica of an original decoy. And now that you can and it's kind of going off that and it's introducing more people to your work and to the art of decorative decoy carving.

Jett Brunet: And for years, I carved one decoy and maybe three a year at the most. And you had three collectors that would buy my work. And they were well-off people who could afford to pay for a nice piece of art. But your average guy, you know, he couldn't buy art. I couldn't buy art. People, you can't buy art unless you really have extra money. Well, now at the DU Bank, which the average guy can come in here and buy a reproduction of one of my originals that captures the essence of my carvings with all the detail and they're all hand-painted. So all of a sudden, my name moves further along the carving world, the hunting world, where now the average guy can have a Jet Brunet decoy on his shelf with ducks and lemongrass.

Katie Burke: I grew up with Jet Brunet decoys in my living room.

Jett Brunet: And look, it's been so wonderful that… My artwork has now got around to so many more people because of Ducks Unlimited, because of the people they reach, and hunters, and collectors, and art lovers, and all of a sudden it ties together. And it was just a wonderful thing that developed for me with Ducks Unlimited.

Katie Burke: It's a special thing. And yeah, it's a really good program that's raised a lot of money for Ducks Unlimited. Yeah, it's neat. There's people who've asked me how… I get more, not from Carvers, actually from artists that want to submit work for the package. I'm like, anybody can submit work for the package. It doesn't mean you're going to be selected, but you can submit work. Yeah, sure, sure. And it's an interesting thing because I would say… It's kind of reminiscent so we've talked about how the duck stamp works too and how that helps not only does that help the conservation but then it helps the artists as well because they get that recognition and then they get that stamp sold so all over the place and they make money off of that and then that helps everybody actually down the road.

Jett Brunet: And the way this this took on a life of its own in that I started doing these small miniatures.

Katie Burke: Beth Dombkowski Yes, like when did you… As I ask you that, when did you do the minis?

Jett Brunet: C.L. Smith Yeah. The very first year, what we wanted to do was maybe combine the package decoy. If a bird got selected, is also give away this little miniature with it. Beth Dombkowski Okay. C.L. Smith Well, that didn't really work for different reasons, but we went over to the membership side and they said, wow, we've been giving away caps and duck calls and shirts. Let's try. So a year later, I got a letter in the mail. Dear Mr. Brunet, please join Ducks Unlimited and get this free Jed Brunet decoy." And I'm like, all right. I sent my 35 bucks in and I got one.

Katie Burke: You got to advertise your own decoy.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, absolutely. And now you're talking about 24 years later and the combination between the small birds and the big ones. I've now produced over 1.2 million pieces of my artwork for Ducks Unlimited.

Katie Burke: That's amazing.

Jett Brunet: 1.2 million. And the amount of people who are now getting these miniatures. Yeah. You know, seeing, wow.

Katie Burke: People do love the miniatures. It's pretty cool. Yeah, they want to have all of them. It's like a whole thing to collect all the little miniatures. They do love them. And if you go around the offices here, people have them.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, I saw that walking through, yeah. On the windowsills, they're lined up.

Katie Burke: Yeah, I have the little miniature ones. Yeah, I didn't know you did that the first year that you went with it.

Jett Brunet: That's cool. Yep, 24 years of miniatures. Next year would have been 25th anniversary.

Katie Burke: Did you do one of each species?

Jett Brunet: Yes, I've been just every year, different species, except for the 20th anniversary. They asked that I do another Mallard Drake, being it's the logo. So, I've done every year different species. Well, you have left. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of… I mean, most of the… I mean, have you done all drakes or you've done… All drakes. All drakes. All drakes. So, now we could go down with the sea ducks and the whistling ducks and geese and swans. So, it's limitless what you know, where we're going from there. And then all of a sudden you might want to do the hints, you know?

Katie Burke: Yeah, you got a long way to go. Yeah. That's funny. I didn't realize that you started at that very beginning. You know, I get lost right there because like when I was a kid, I was going to national convention probably with my dad from like, I guess, starting like mid 90s, early 2000s. And then I drop off when I go to college and I don't go as much. And that's when I, there's that, that mid 2000s is where I get lost when things actually started because I wasn't around.

Jett Brunet: And then the fact that, you know, the, the people at the banquets or the people who send their membership, on a consistent basis, don't necessarily get to offer for this miniature. They're going trying to get new members. So it's taken several years before the guys are going to the banquets, hopefully purchasing one of my birds at auction, realize, hey man, there's a set of miniatures just like it. So now it's all kind of tying together where the miniatures are just growing in popularity. People do like the miniatures, it's funny.

Katie Burke: Okay, so I have a few more questions about the… Okay, I want to talk about the interpretive stuff a little bit because I really like it and it's my favorite stuff of yours. Oh, thank you. It's my favorite. How has your inspiration, like obviously towards the end of doing decorative, you were kind of doing it to win, right? You had a, you were, it was much more formulaic approach, like this is what's going to get me the win, right? And so, I mean, I'm sure in the beginning it wasn't that way. You had a much more… inspiration, like you come. Yeah. So how has that evolved now that you're doing work much more on a, like with the inspiration behind it? How is your motivations of what have changed? Or have they? I'm guessing they had to naturally evolve in some way.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, a few years after, out of the decorative competition, I was creating these sculptures that I really like, and it was freeing. And then I gradually started, you know, I had been many years away from a carving competition, maybe eight years, didn't even go to a show. And when I got back in, just going to visit, meet my old friends and going up the East Coast, having lobster and clams and enjoying life in the art world. And I started doing these sculptures, and I said, man, you know, there's a now, later on, after maybe 10 or 15 years of the championships existing, they started making a category for the Interpretive Wood Sculptures Championship. So now, you could do, you could win a championship not doing a decorative decoy. So I started entering my pieces in there, and it was fun because I didn't feel the pressure of, man, I gotta win this thing. It's not my specialty. It's not what I've had success with in the past. So I was back doing some competition pieces without the pressure. Just getting in there, and if I win, great. If I don't win, that's okay. It's apples and oranges. Not everybody's making a Mallard Drake that has to look just like a Mallard Drake. You can do anything as long as it's foul, as long as there are feathers on it. Anything you carve, you can enter. Any type of sculpture, any type of bird, with any type of habitat, doesn't have to be realistic. It just has to make the judges look at it and say, wow, that's something special. That's a work of art. I don't care that it's not exactly woodburn or painted. Yeah, exactly. and still to be able to have success. Now, my last three championships were in the woods country, 30 years after my first do a decorative details, which is so satisfying.

Katie Burke: So what now? If you're not going to enter, what's going to motivate you now?

Jett Brunet: Man, just looking at a block of wood and coming up with something that I think special, but more importantly, that people passing by will look at it and say, wow, I really like what you just did there. Whether it's a chickadee or a hawk or an eagle that can just get someone to appreciate what I do. That's so fulfilling. That's so exciting that I can take off with a block of wood and create something that will have people putting me on a podcast, you know?

Katie Burke: Something like that. Yeah, so are you gonna, will you sell your stuff going forward? Or maybe, maybe not?

Jett Brunet: Maybe, maybe. I don't know. It's been 17 years since I sold an original. Yeah. And I have a collector who's really interested in, and I'm likely gonna sell some of my original decoratives. As far as the interpretives, Maybe. So far, you know, I keep them. You're attached. I give them to my family. But I can see in the future where I'll do that. You know, at some point my collection will be too big. So I'm kind of hoping. And I've had some collectors very interested in these interpretives. So I'm looking forward to see how that develops. Now that they're, you know, my work is being, people see it and they'll look for it now. When I first started doing the sculptures, collectors and carvers, friends of mine would say, boy, we want to see a duck. So we want to see what you do next. You know, with a decorative deco. I'm like, guys, that's done with. And they really didn't pay a lot of attention to my sculptures. And but now it's getting more noticed and people are enjoying it more. and they're seeing that, you know, it's the same artist just going in a slightly different direction, just less detail, you know? So I'm hoping it keeps going in that direction. Well, where I have now a few collectors saying, man, we'd like some to where I can maybe start selling some and pick the ones I want to keep and the ones I want to sell and maybe get a whole new line of my artwork out there that people will really love to play.

Katie Burke: Oh, I think they will. I do. I just think, I think, I don't know what you think about this and let's look after this one in the, but, um, I just think they got so rigid and I've seen this with the duck stamp too, which I get a little worried about, but they've gotten so rigid with the rules on things for what is a world champion. I mean, even the fact that they gave an interpretive category is a step in the right direction. Right. Absolutely. And I think the audience, I think, I mean, that's the way the judges are going, but I don't think that's necessarily where your patrons are going to, the people buying, collectors are going to go. I don't necessarily think they only want the very realistic things. I don't think that's accurate to the market.

Jett Brunet: No, you're absolutely right. And having to conform to the rules of doing the decorative card, I mean, it's sort of, you've got to harness your artistic creativity, you know, and that's just not the way things should go.

Katie Burke: No, I don't think the market reflects the realistic part of the competition. I mean, I don't have any proof, but just what I see in the decoy world and collectors, I don't see that that's really what the market will continue to reflect. I think it's changing.

Jett Brunet: Yeah, I agree. And I'm glad I could get to see it. And when you're doing a particular species, a particular decoy going to particular realism. Collectors come out, you know, they know what they're expecting. They know what they're going to see and they're hoping there's something a little different, a little further. When you do these sculptures, people have no idea where you come until they see it. And I've done chickadees and I've done hawks and I've done owls. And it's limitless what you can do. I've done a parrot on an anchor. You know, I mean, really things. And so they don't know what to expect. And that keeps things fresh. Keeps things new. And, you know, they just, I'm hoping at some point they don't, you know, as the legacy I may leave behind is not just a decoy carver. As an artist, sculptor, you know, that's what I consider myself.

Katie Burke: Yeah, I like that. I like that you call yourself an artist. All these decoy carvers don't like to call themselves artists, and it drives me crazy when they are artists.

Jett Brunet: And that's what I feel, you know, and if you call me a decoy carver, I'm happy with that. I consider myself an artist. I think you're an artist.

Katie Burke: Thank you. Well, thank you for doing this with me.

Jett Brunet: You're very welcome. This was very nice. You made it so easy for me. I'm not real comfortable doing these things, but I'm so proud to be able to be part of this.

Katie Burke: Thank you. I'm glad you did it. You did great. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thanks to our producer, Chris Isaac, and thanks to you, our listener, for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.