Wildlife artist Mark Dufresne grew up in the Berkshire
Mountains of western Massachusetts. Mark grew up on a
small family farm. He worked for neighboring farms during
the vegetable harvests, tobacco and haying seasons. The
value of hard work was learned at an early age. Growing
up in the farm country provided easy access to ample hunting
and fishing. Mark's stepfather was an avid sportsman and
brought him into the field on many hunting trips. Mark
spent nearly every free moment fishing and duck hunting
the Mill River and stalking the surrounding mountains
for small game, deer, bear, and turkeys. A bond was formed
with nature that has woven itself into every aspect of
his life.
Mark was introduced to taxidermy at the age of eight
by his stepfather. His family always encouraged him.
By the time he was a junior in high school he was operating
a full time taxidermy studio. His urge to realistically
represent wildlife pushed him to study harder. It is
DufresneÕs intent to reproduce wildlife in an anatomically
accurate and artistically pleasing composition. To do
this he found it necessary to gather an extensive library
of reference material. Mark has spent countless hours
in the field photographing wildlife and gathering habitat
reference.
In 1995 Mark graduated from Unity College with honors.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree in wildlife
with a minor in forestry. He also met his future wife
at Unity College. For the next four years he pursued
a variety of state and federal wildlife jobs and worked
seasonally at a local sawmill.
His work carried him to Oregon, to live trap black
tail deer, and on to the remote Northlands of Alaska.
During these seasonal jobs Mark photographed the native
plant and animal life. His extensive travels, including
Australia and New Zealand, have provided him with an
excellent opportunity to gain experience with a very
broad range of species.
Mark now calls Maine his home. He is located in southern
Maine in an area loaded with wildlife. On his land he
maintains food plots and feeding stations for the native
wildlife. This provides a year round chance to study
the deer and birds up close and personal. His dedication
to his craft is very apparent in his everyday life.
He maintains a small heard of alpine goats and deer
to use as reference study. Mark believes that the only
way to accurately reproduce wildlife art is to first
know your specimens intimately. He accomplishes this
by living with them day in and day out. This has given
him the rare ability to recreate the essence of life
that is in the live animals and birds. In fact it can
be near impossible to distinguish the live animal from
the mounted animal in a photograph.
For the past twenty-two years Dufresne has dedicated
a large part of his life to taxidermy. He constantly
strives for perfection to keep his work on the cutting
edge of taxidermy. His work can be found in public and
private collections across the United States and Canada.
Woodcarvers and artists have commissioned MarkÕs work
to add to there own reference collections. At thirty
years of age his dedication to taxidermy has not wavered
and he is still striving towards perfection. At the
2002 Maine Association of Taxidermists annual convention
he proved his intimate knowledge of wildlife and habitats.
He entered a stunning Mountain Goat from British Columbia.
At the close of the show he had won the following awards:
* First place ribbon for the large mammal division
* First place ribbon for the habitat division
* Best of Category ribbon for large mammals
* Taxidermists choice
* Judges choice
* Rayline award for excellence in large mammal taxidermy
In addition to these awards he also won the coveted
Breakthrough Award for Judges choice Best of Show. His
goat was selected as the "most outstanding entry at
the Maine Association of Taxidermists annual convention
and competition." To view this beautiful composition
please look at the gall
