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Written by Michael Muckian, Contributing writer
Jun 30, 2011
“The Owlman,” Clarence Cameron. – Photo: Courtesy
Clarence Cameron probably knows owls more intimately than anyone in Madison. But “The Owlman,” as Cameron is known, is not an ornithologist, outdoorsman or avian veterinarian. In fact, he rarely leaves the house he occupies with Bob Lockhart, his domestic partner of nearly 50 years.
Cameron, 70, is a sculptor who specializes in owls. In fact, the Beloit native never carves anything else – and he doesn’t want to.
“It’s almost crazy,” Cameron says. “I can be walking down the street, look at a pile of trash and see an owl in it. I have never tired of the bird.”
Cameron began sculpting owls out of clay, then moved to soapstone and other materials. He also makes owls out of bronze, pewter and copper. His small pewter owls sell for as little as $5, while his soapstone carvings command as much as $5,000-$6,000.
Cameron estimates that he’s made well over 20,000 owls in various media in his long carving career, a number of which have landed in various wildlife art museums.
But he didn’t always carve owls. During his two years as a UW-Madison student, he apprenticed at an area funeral home and then decided to study mortuary science in Milwaukee. That’s the time when the artist first began working in clay. He loved the feel and texture of the material.
After graduation, Cameron did brief stints running a funeral home and serving as a physical therapy aid before opening the Double C Ceramic Shop on Madison’s South Park Street in 1965. He sold the business in 1974 to concentrate full-time on clay sculpting.
Eventually Cameron abandoned clay for soapstone, a soft mineral suitable for carving that’s also the source of talc.
The Owlman is hard-pressed to understand his fascination for his namesake bird, other than people’s appreciation for both his realistic and stylistic owl interpretations.
Despite having a house full of real parrots and tropical birds, he has never owned an owl.
“It’s against the law to even have an owl feather in your possession in Wisconsin,” Cameron says. “I have a friend who runs a raptor rehabilitation center in Illinois, so I have been able to hold a great many owls (there).”
The artist and his birds will occupy Booth 97 at Art Fair off the Square, an alternative outdoor event held in conjunction with Art Fair on the Square, the better known and longer-standing event sponsored by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
The two fairs, held July 9-10, are located almost adjacent to each other, with Off the Square occupying the Monona Terrace Esplanade. Cameron, who exhibits every year, helped co-found Off the Square in 1982 to protest a developing trend by On the Square of not accepting Wisconsin artists as exhibitors.
Off the Square is produced by the Wisconsin Alliance of Artists and Craftspeople, an organization of about 400 artists from Wisconsin. WAAC anticipates that this year’s Off the Square will attract about 140 Wisconsin exhibitors.
Although he has exhibited at art fairs around the country, The Owlman sticks close to home these days, content to sell his work through www.owlman.com.
He spends a great deal of time in his basement workshop creating his namesake bird out of a variety of materials. “I’d like to try wood carving,” he says. “I have 10 basswood logs someone gave me, and that’s the wood with which most carvers start.”
He’d also like to sculpt one of his parrots, but that’s not likely to happen unless it turns into an owl.
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