identity story by
/ Cheryl Nelsen
Ramberg’s Flock Between her family and a distinguished nursing career, artist Joanne Ramberg follows a lifelong study of carving models of her favorite birds Of the more than 100 bird sculptures created by Joanne Ramberg, a small flock remains with her at her home.
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ig ht y-f ive -ye a r- old Joanne Ramberg’s hands are not as limber nor as strong as they were when she was raising six children, tending to patients in hospitals and carving birds and
Lawrence Magazine
photography by
other wildlife from wood. Now, some of her children are grandparents themselves, and in 2010 she retired from her 62-year career as a nurse, professor and child health assessment coordinator. But she hasn’t given up her hobby as a wood carver. Joanne’s wooden, handcarved birds line the shelves at her home in Pioneer Ridge Assisted Living. These are the remaining ones that she has not given away or sold from the approximately 100 birds she estimates she has carved over her lifetime. “I carved cardinals more than anything, but I love the robin. Another bird that fascinated me
/ spring 2011 / sunflowerpub.com
/ jason dailey
was the Baltimore oriole. I’ve seen him all my life in different spots,” Joanne says. Joanne began observing birds from her childhood Chicago home near Lake Michigan. She would walk along the waters to watch the gulls and sea birds come in over the shoreline. Her father bought her binoculars and the first illustrated field guide to birds, published in 1934 and authored by Roger Tory Peterson, the most sought-after ornithologist and conservationist of his time. She would also pull out that book around home, observing birds nesting in trees outside her bedroom window and growing to love them.