Wildlife painter and Wilmont native Michael Sieve publishes book
Jan. 4—WILMONT — Perhaps you've admired one of his paintings of white-tailed deer or pheasants on the prairie. You might even own some of his prints. Now, Wilmont native and world renowned wildlife painter Michael Sieve has published, "An Artist's Life," a legacy project, he says, that encompasses his life through the eyes of family and friends, with more than 280 of Sieve's paintings featured within the 288-page hardcover book.
Today, Sieve lives in Houston County, in the far southeast corner of Minnesota, but his passion for wildlife began in northern Nobles County, where he grew up hunting and exploring among the vast farm fields, tree lines and water courses.
Sieve was a member of the last graduating class — 1969 — from Wilmont's Catholic school. There were no art offerings among the classes, but he was always interested in drawing.
"As a kid, I drew army figures and airplanes. I was also interested in the things I saw," he recently shared via phone. "Dad would take us hunting, so I drew pheasants and foxes and stuff."
His art back then was "as good as the best kids in Wilmont," he said. "But there were only 20 kids in my class. I think there were three or four that could draw as well as I could. No one had paint."
While he says he grew up without any art inspiration, the art truly was the landscape around him.
After high school, Sieve enrolled in the marketing program at then-Southwest Minnesota State College in Marshall, thinking he might find work as an illustrator and draw ads.
"Back then, art was a big part of advertising," said Sieve, who saw his share of hand-drawn ads in newspapers as a Worthington Daily Globe paper carrier for subscribers in Wilmont.
Among his course requirements for a marketing major was accounting — a subject in which Sieve struggled.
"Wilmont had two quarters of accounting and I didn't take it," he said, noting that he opted to take Latin language class instead. At college, he failed the accounting course two semesters in a row, and his instructor — who had discovered Sieve's talent in art — encouraged the young student to pursue his interests in art and painting. That same instructor purchased one of Sieve's paintings in a student art exhibition at Southwest Minnesota State, giving Sieve even more encouragement.
In those early years, Sieve began doing farm paintings for local families who commissioned him to paint their farmsites.
"Even today, the people that have them are very, very protective of them," he said, adding that in some cases, siblings have been known to fight over who gets the painting.
He also painted a favorite pet — a horse or a dog — for people to pick up a few extra dollars during college.
Then, after graduating in 1973, Sieve hitchhiked to the West Coast.
"That was very common in those years," he said, adding that his travels took him through Jackson, Wyoming, where he discovered a plethora of art galleries and a wide variety of paintings.
"I realized then that a lot of people were making a living painting," said Sieve. "They had a few galleries with wildlife art ... and I started thinking I could be as good as these people."
In the summer of 1974, after returning to southwest Minnesota, Sieve found work at a beef slaughterhouse in Hospers, Iowa. He recalled that after a year on the job, he'd saved up enough money to buy a new truck.
He worked at the slaughterhouse during the day and painted in the evening — a schedule he kept until 1979, when he became a full-time painter.
From 1979 through the mid-1990s, Sieve said he made a good living with his art. It isn't like today, where he says the art market has "pretty much dried up."
While that may be the case, Sieve can still be found painting.
"I paint because I like to," he said.
Sieve said he was approached by Sporting Classics, a South Carolina-based publishing company specializing in books that feature the world's finest wildlife artists, during the height of his career as an artist. The timing wasn't right back then — he was too young; he had more to accomplish.
In January or February 2020, Sieve was once again asked about doing a book. This time, he said, "Let's go."
"We decided to do a book of roughly 135 pages and have it done by that fall," Sieve recalled. Then COVID hit and the publishing company said the book had to wait a couple of years.
By 2021, COVID had struck the publishing industry hard. Production, paper, transportation and ink costs had all skyrocketed, and the company suggested dropping the whole project.
"The book came within a hair of falling apart totally," Sieve said. It was him who suggested doing a different kind of book — one in which people close to Sieve would write the seven chapters in the book.
Sieve's brother, Jeff, an accomplished writer with works published in Gray's Sporting Journal, wrote the book's introduction. Meanwhile, Sieve's daughter, Heather, who works for Oxford University Press, wrote the biography.
Sieve's own words can be found throughout the book, with many short stories about the featured paintings. Long-time friends wrote chapters on everything from Sieve's art to hunting to traveling the world. Sieve penned the chapter on white-tailed deer — his passion in painting.
"It took a long time in writing this book," he said, adding that the end result is like a cap on his whole career. The book includes a lot of history — one of his favorite subjects — and a lot of stories written from personal experiences.
Heather Sieve was the book's primary editor, along with Chuck Wechsler, editor of Sporting Classics.
The experience, Sieve said, was a good one, and cemented a stronger bond with his daughter.
"I've worked with a lot of people in my career that know a lot about art. Heather is one of the best, if not the best, that I've worked with," he said, adding that Heather is handling publicity and promotion of the book, as well as mailing out orders. The book may be purchased through Sieve's website,
Sieve visited his hometown of Wilmont a week before Christmas to do a book signing, and will begin a book tour through Sporting Classics soon.
