b'c o a s ta la r tway to earn a living doing it. Taxidermy is, in fact, sculpture. When anyone sees a stuffed bear, for example, they should know that there are no real bear parts inside the thing. It is a skin stretched over a sculpture of a bear, or a big fish, or a wildcat, mule hair deer, or what have you.The chief taxidermist at the Swedish National Museum of Art is Stockholm was one Bjrn Wennerberg, who hired Kent Ullberg as a taxidermist assistant following his graduation from art school. It was his first job as a museum curator, in his first career before becoming a working artist (one who is not a starving artist), that would lead him to the places where his now-storied career would find fuel.After his time in Stockholm, Ullberg was able to advance his education and artistic skills in the museum world in Germany, where he was introduced to representatives of President Seretse Khama of Botswana, who was building the countrys first national museum. A large nation geographically, Botswana has a population of about two million today, and less than one million in the 1970s, when Ullberg was hired to curate the museums entire first collection. Botswana, which is 70% desert, located directly north of South Africa, had been granted independence from Britain less than a decade earlier and was the African continents first democratic republic. During his time in Africa, Ullberg became an expert on native wildlife, leading tours and safaris, and even hunting down a rogue lioness that had killed multiple villagers.Denvers Museum of Natural History is owed a debt of gratitude for bringing Kent Ullberg to America. Its directors worked with Ullberg in Botswana cu-rating its new African exhibit, and after two years, invited him to Colorado where he was hired to run the exhibit itselfall while Ullberg would hone his sculpting skills and use his time away from the museum to gain exposure for his work. By 1976, Kent Ullberg was at last able to declare himself a working artist, as he had secured enough commissioned work to survive financially. In the 47 years since, he has earned his place as one of the worlds most re-spected and accomplished sculptors, Ullbergs work standing as monuments in locations throughout the United States and Europe.Although Ullberg found a beloved new home in Coloradoenamored with the Rocky Mountains and its diverse, seasonal wildlife, and finding a large artists community with whom he could share ideas, philosophy, and techniqueshe and his wife Veerle nonetheless chose the then-new Padre Isles development on North Padre Island as their permanent home in America. It was in his newly adopted hometown that several of Ullbergs early monumental works gained acclaim throughout the greater art world. Wind in the Sails was com-missioned by Edward H. Harte, publisher of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, co-founder of the Padre Island National Seashore, and a director of the Nation-al Audubon Society, to celebrate the newspapers centennial, in 1983.The first of Ullbergs eagle monuments was installed at the prestigious Lin-coln Centre in North Dallas in 1981, a spectacular 23-foot American Bald Eagle in stainless steel setting upon a black granite pedestal, and a second at the Genesee County (New York) Museum, a 21-foot bronze-on-stone, in 1984. One of the most visible of Ullbergs American Bald Eagle monuments oversees the entrance to the Federal Reserve Bank in Houston, 15-feet high with a 20-foot wingspan, installed in 2005. The Lincoln Centre Eagle was subsequently donat-ed to the University of Texas at Dallas Center for Brain Science.In the Coastal Bend alone, Ullbergs work is highly visible on North Shoreline Top: It is I, Ullbergs iconic sculpture in bronze of JesusBoulevard, where you will find one of his rare sculptures of a human figure, Christ on the Corpus Christi Bayfront. Left (Left to Right):that of Jesus Christ (It is I, 1995), which soars 25feet in front of the First Former Caller-Times publisher Ed Harte, Mayor Luther Jones,United Methodist Church. Ullbergs famed Sea Otters have been seen by mil-and Ullberg in front of Wind in the Sails on Shoreline Blvd.,lions at the entrance to the Texas State Aquarium, where several of his works 1983. Above: African subjects, a King Cobra and Meerkat. have been installed, and his 24-foot Leaping Marlin welcomes residents and 44THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'