Jeremy Bradshaw: Falconer and wildlife sculptor March 19 2025, 0 Comments

By Kimberly Nicoletti

 Some people’s careers easily take flight. Such is the case with Jeremy Bradshaw. He fell in love with falconry when he was 5 or 6 years old after seeing a man work with a hawk. By age 19, he was a professional falconer. He has been working in the field for 30 years, including traveling the world lecturing and becoming a published author.

Now, he is a full-time artist, fashioning bronze sculptures of animals. His artistic skill naturally soared for him in his early 40s after he worked with some clay at a friend’s house, who was a sculptor.

In fact, he’s only been an artist — and a self-taught one, at that — since 2017. 

“Watching (my friend) work out a piece, I started to play around a little bit with some of his clay and realized that there might be an avenue there for me to create some art and express some things that I wanted to,” Bradshaw said. “It didn't take long for that to move pretty quickly into actually pursuing it full-time and seriously.”

Being around wildlife and spending time in the wilderness has compelled him to share the happiness he finds within the natural world. Working with raptors heightens his sense of connection with nature and “wildness in general,” he said, and fuels his drive to be a wildlife artist. 

Bradshaw continued, "I believe that it’s important for people to remember that we’re not separate from nature — we are part of it, and the more that we connect with it, the healthier mentally and physically we are. I own wildlife art (from) friends that are painters … and having their artwork in my home gives me a sense of connection. I share the stories that they put on canvas, and it contributes to that connection, and that’s certainly what I try to create with my art.”

His rounded sculptures convey playfulness, which reflects his experiences growing up. As a kid, he’d imagine befriending a mountain lion or bear or other creatures. Now, in his 50s, that openness and imagination shines through in his artwork.

Bradshaw challenges himself to add a softness and lightness to his bronzes — a medium inherently hard and heavy. For example, “Fox Trot” is made from a big piece of metal, yet the fox showcases its agility and speed by balancing on one small foot. Meanwhile, his peregrine falcon tilts forward as it cuts across water, providing a sense of movement and speed.

“For me, it’s really a matter of pushing the perception of the medium,” he said. “It’s a big, heavy metal, but I use round shapes to give a sense of softness, along with my patina. Compositionally, any time I can kind of defy the sense of gravity that the reality of bronze presents, I think it’s more interesting.”

He continues to explore and push boundaries, saying it’s too early in his career to lock himself into a specific style, no matter how popular it already is. He intends to expand into more abstract representations of wildlife.

“I like what I do, and I think it makes people really happy —these kind of animal caricatures, but I think there are more interesting ways to express these different animals, so I really want to play around with some different shapes and designs,” he said.

That might take the form of basic shapes within a bison without defining all of its specific anatomy, or by portraying an autumn breeze by sculpting aspen trees in a type of rolling wave. It’s yet another way of how Bradshaw hopes to share the essence of wildness.

His natural talent and curiosity promises to continually evolve. With each piece he sculpts, Bradshaw learns more and dreams up new ideas about how to tell wildlife stories. In the immediate future, he’s finishing up a fox called “Red Alert,” as well as a piece depicting a cardinal — just in time for spring.

His falcon season ended about three weeks ago, so he’s ramping up his art production for the summer, spending six to 10 hours nearly every day in his studio. During spring and summer, falcons molt, growing a new, full set of feathers, so falconers don’t hunt or fly with them then. Falcon season occurs in the fall and winter, following typical hunting seasons. A usual fall or winter day for Jeremy Bradshaw includes spending a couple hours in his studio preparing for the day, warming up the kiln, etc. Then, around 9 a.m., he heads out with the falcons for two to three hours, and when he returns home, he spends another handful of hours in his studio working on his sculptures. 

Through it all, he gives people a visual — and tactile — way to commune with the various personalities that live within our forests.