Sponsored by MANNY & JO FERNANDEZ and Located at DING DARLING NATURE STORE 2

The team effort of the talented Jim & Patty Sprankle created Spoonie, a manatee that doesn’t know if she has wings or flippers. “It causes a little confusion,” says Patty with a wink. Jim, a world-renowned wildfowl sculptor, has graciously donated one of his hand-painted original castings of a Roseate Spoonbill as a
companion piece to the manatee.

ARTISTS: JIM AND PATTY SPRANKLE

After growing up in Lafayette, Indiana, Jim was a professional baseball player, banking executive and small business owner. His early age adventures in wildfowl hunting, combined with a family woodworking and taxidermy background, led him to the waterfowl art world. He began carving in 1968 and has become one of the best-known wildfowl wood sculptors in the world

Jim and Patty moved to Sanibel in 1994 and with constant exposure to wading and shore birds at the J. N. “Ding” Darling Refuge, his work naturally turned to these fascinating native species. He eventually served five terms as President of the Ding Darling Society, the Refuge Friends group, and has been a Board member for 18 years.

Patty is a porcelain artist, designing and painting fine pieces which can be fired more than ten times as layer after layer of color is applied. “My husband is an accomplished world-renowned wildfowl wood sculptor, and his passion for birds and nature became an artistic passion for me as well in 2007 when I first tackled the art of china painting,” says Patty. “I have taken numerous classes from a variety of international porcelain artists …I love painting the birds of Sanibel!”