Put a Bird on It! (part 1)

I recently read a comment (or was it a "tweet"?!) about the supposed "over-use" of bird images in art right now.  I, for one, beg to differ- and so do Portlandia's Lisa and Bryce:                              



Ha!  I love that!

Birds have been a favorite subject and symbol portrayed in art since the beginning of... well... art.  In fact, what may well be the earliest rock pictograph ever incorporates a bird image.

According to archaeologist Robert Gunn, "...a rock painting that appears to be of a bird that went extinct about 40,000 years ago has been discovered in northern Australia. If confirmed, this would be the oldest rock art anywhere in the world..." (Robert Gunn, 40,000 Year Old Rock Art Site Depicts Extinct Bird, News Junkie Post.) 

one of many identical stenciled birds at Djulirri Rock Shelter

Another prehistoric artist apparently took a page from Lisa and Bryce's book, using a stencil to "put a bird on it" all over the Djulirri Rock Shelter in northern Australia.  (Prehistoric Rock Art Reveals Creator's Bird Obsession, Beta News, 2012.)

A stork or heron-like bird called the benu, an Egyptian bird thought to be the origin of the mythological  phoenix.

Why have birds so captured our imaginations?  Not so long ago, if you think about it, humans must have believed them to be magical beings, perhaps related to gods or spirits. No one could have comprehended their amazing and mysterious gift of flight; even a rudimentary knowledge of the underlying physics didn't exist until the 1600's. Their melodious songs and beautiful, sometimes brightly colored feathers would have only reinforced this perception.

In Hindu mythology, a half-bird half-human creature called Garuda carries Vishnu and his wife on his back.


Birds have always played an important part in the symbolism, myths, and folktales of many cultures. "Rising above the earth and soaring through the skies, birds have been symbols of power and freedom throughout the ages. In many myths and legends, birds link the human world to the divine or supernatural realms that lie beyond ordinary experience."  For more information about the role of birds in mythology, go here. 

Roman wall painting, about AD 70

John Burroughs (1837-1921) wrote, "The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life... The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!"

Ivory-billed Woodpecker by John James Audubon

When you think of art and birds, one of the first names to pop into your head might well be that of John James Audubon (1785-1851), a famous self-taught scientist and artist who spent 18 years of his life in an attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America, and discovering many unknown species along the way.  The result was "The Birds of America", a collection of 435 prints of his naturalistic and extremely detailed life-sized paintings.

White Gyrfalcons by John James Audubon

I feel I would be remiss if I didn't mention Charles Darwin, particulary because of his use of bird drawings to illustrate and support his theory of natural selection.  Darwin noted that the beaks of several species of finches living on the Galapogos Islands varied from island to island, but correlated to the type of food available to them on each island.

Darwin's drawing of the beak shapes of some finch species on the Galapogos Islands.

There are so many ways in which artists have 'put a bird on it' that I never grow tired of looking at them.  I'm completely amazed and intrigued by the limitless variety of methods, media, and styles that have been used to portray birds.  Here are a few examples:

 

Inuit artist Mayoreak Ashoona, Tuulirjuaq (Great Big Loon), stencil and stone cut

Ancient ibis painting copied by Howard Carter (discoverer of King Tut's tomb) from a tomb in Egypt.

Swiss artist Elfi Cella often includes birds in her brilliant mixed media paintings. If you're not familiar with her work, click on her name to check it out.

This untitled piece by Lynne Hoppe never fails to touch me... something about the mixture of emotions it evokes, which I can 't quite put into words...

One of my favorite pieces by one of my favorite collage artists, Dick Allowatt- Navigator.

The Ornithologist, 2008, acrylic with mixed media by Donna Iona Drozda

Diving Bird by Erika Giovanna Klien, 1939

Nova by Megan Schliebs

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you may have noticed that I have quite a propensity to put birds on things, myself...

Palimpsest: Language (detail)

Before There Was Anything, Heron and Crow Were There...

Don't worry, I haven't run out of birds yet... Stay tuned for the second installment of "Put a Bird on It"!

Inspiration When We Need It Most

I hope this post won't offend you or bore you, but it might.  I wrote it, mainly, as a reminder to myself, and for anyone else out there who may need it.

 Can't see the forest for the trees

Sometimes things just don't go the way they should, or, rather, I should say, the way we think they should. This winter has been one of those times. My closest friend struggles to come to terms with the senseless death of someone very close to her.  Another friend has a severely disabled husband to care for, without the financial means to do so. My problems are small compared to theirs; I continue to add to a collection of health problems brought on by a job that becomes more and more stressful each day, and can't seem to find a way to resolve the situation.  Yesterday I learned that someone from whom I should be able to expect support had made some very negative comments on my yearly evaluation. At first I was hurt and angry, but I've been through enough in my life to know that these feelings won't do anyone any good- to say the least.  I recalled the Buddha's famous quote:

"Your greatest enemy is your greatest teacher."

Seems a bit confusing, right? To illustrate, Pema Chodron tells the story of  the great Buddhist teacher, Atisha, who brings a very unpleasant servant with him to Tibet, because he fears the Tibetan people may be too nice!  Read more about it here. Or, to hear another explanation in Chodron's own voice, watch the video below.




I'm trying to internalize this idea and put it into practice.  In the meantime, the immediate challenges remain, and I'm no closer to figuring them out than before.  But just when I think it's time to give up, someone puts inspiration right in front of my face, quite by accident.  In this case, for instance, I had not looked at my notices from facebook, (which go to their own inbox apart from my regular email), in a very long time. I've just been too busy, too overwhelmed to even think about it. So, on this snow day, I was getting ready to delete all or most of the 854 facebook emails, when I thought, wait- maybe I should check first to see if there's anything important in there. The first thing I noticed was that I had missed a blog post by my dear friend Donna Iona Drozda. As I read it, I was so moved and inspired by the story of one woman's courage in the face of terrible odds, and by the beautiful art she made as a result, that I wanted to share it with you.








I saw a video of this little boy on the news the other night, and was amazed by his energy and positive attitude. You may have heard of him; his name is Robby Novak, but he calls himself the "kid president."  His PEP TALK cracks me up and makes me feel better, no matter what.



According to the CBS Evening News, Robby loves to dance, but for him, dancing can be a problem.  "Robby has osteogenesis imperfecta, a disease that makes his bones brittle. He has had more than 70 broken bones and 13 surgeries. He has steel rods in both legs.
But Robby says he doesn't worry about breaking things.
"I don't worry about -- like, that's my point!" he exclaims. "I'm trying not to worry about it. Like, I want everybody to know ... I'm not that kid who breaks a lot. Like, I'm just -- I'm just a kid who wants to have fun."

The Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
It's all about how you think, what you choose to see, and the attitude you choose to have each day.  I have to try to remember that.

Oh, and I have to share one more Buddha quote, which may be my ultimate favorite:
“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.”
Try not to forget that.

Well, that's it- the end of the preachy post.  I hope it inspired you, but if not, next time I'll be back to the regular art stuff, I promise.

Look! it's a book!

Well, it's been a while.  With school back in session, life has resumed a pace somewhat reminiscent of a meteor hurtling towards the earth.  Besides that, my daughter is about to get married, and I have been working on the guest book, which is the first book I've made completely "from scratch".  I was very nervous that I would mess it up- which I did, early on- so I still had time to start over. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, if I do say so myself.

Here are all the pieces, ready to be sewn together.  I got stuck at this stage for a while because I was looking at the directions for the stitching order, and found them confusing.  I couldn't figure out the best way to knot the thread at the end, and there were about six different ways of doing it- mainly due to the fact that Japanese stab binding wasn't originally used with hard covers, I guess. 

 Here it is, all sewn together...

 detail

 I'm not really happy with the appearance of the linen thread, and it's not terribly tight; I pulled it as tight as I could while sewing, so I think it must be the knot on the inside, which may not be as close to the spine as I had intended.

 I left the rest of the decoration until after the stitching, so as not ruin it.

I may sew over the stitches with a very thin black ribbon, which might look better than the linen thread, but all in all, not too bad.

In case you're wondering why it's called "Guest gallery", it's because Caitlin and Wes are getting married in an art gallery.  I stamped gold frames on the black pages for people to write in.

I want to again thank Mo of the fantastic blog, "It's Crow Time", who is always willing to patiently answer my unending book-binding questions.  You should really look at her beautiful drawings, especially if you like crows, which we all do, it seems.


In other news, Roxanne Evans Stout, an accomplished artist and teacher (and one of the sweetest people I know) of Rivergarden Studio has included my answer to the question, "What is the thread that runs through your work?" in her post, "Of Golden Threads, part 3".  This is her third post featuring the responses of various artists to this intriguing question, and the answers range from emotionally revealing to surprising to inspirational. If you haven't already, please check it out.


My dear friend Donna Iona Drozda recently did a guest post for the Series "Artist as Collector" on artist Nanci Hersh's wonderful blog, and to my surprise, she honored me by choosing to feature me as her 'collected' artist'.  The post is titled, "Empty and Full with a Fresh Eye" and I hope you'll take a few minutes to read it.  Also, you'll no doubt want to check out Donna's work; not only is she an enormously talented artist, but she shares her "Luna See" spiritual insight through her "Following the Moon" blog, she somehow finds time to work on public art projects such as "Life in Transit", teach workshops for children and adults, and so much more.


Thanks to Roxanne, Donna, Mo, and all my sweet blogger friends- I love you all!

My Seven Links

 

 I took it as a great compliment when my dear friend Donna Drozda invited me to be part of the 'My 7 Links’ project.  Luckily, she assured me there was no deadline, so my usual inability to get to all 1,329 things on my list in a timely fashion was not going to be a problem.  I have to admit that when I realize how much time has gone by since the invitation, I feel a bit embarrassed, but I'm going ahead with it nonetheless.  So, I hope those whose blogs I’ve invited will allow themselves the same lee way… and if the time or interest doesn’t fit, no worries.  (I copied some of this from Donna; she writes much better than I do.  I can hear her laughing at me now.)

 

Did I Dream This?  by Donna Drozda

 The idea is to go back to your own posts and find one to fit each of the 7 categories, then ‘pass it on' to 5 more bloggers, and so on, and so on, etc., etc., etc.  The project is described as a way of “uniting bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint venture", and I'm all about uniting, you know?

The following are the 7 categories:

1. Most beautiful post

2. Most popular post

3. Most controversial post

4. Most helpful post

5. Most “surprisingly successful” post

6. Most neglected post

7. The post that makes them most proud

   So, here goes! 

   

   
   

    1. Most Beautiful.   I had a hard time deciding,  but in the end I think I chose "White" 2/7/10 at least partly because we've had virtually no snow (or snow days!) this winter.  On the day these photos were taken, we'd had the most perfect snowfall during the night, and then, in the morning, the sun came out.  The result was dazzling.

    

   2. Most Popular.  I don't know if this post got the most comments, but I appreciated the support of so many wonderful blogger friends.  Where can you find this many people so willing to cheer you on?  I hope they also found some small inspiration in this story of conquered fears: "I Did It" 10/24/10

    

   

    

   3. Most Controversial.  I'm not sure any of my posts were very controversial.  But I know that politics are not popular on art blogs, and despite my best efforts to keep my political opinions to myself, they just pop out every once in a while.  I chose "Every day should be Earth Day" 4/21/09  , because everyone really should know about this.

    

   4. Most helpful.  Many of you told me that this post was helpful, and I, too, often need to remind myself that "Art Comes From the Making" 6/30/11

    

   5. Most surprisingly successful.  I was surprised to see how this post resonated with people; I had feared it might be too whiney, but it was something I just needed to say.  Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt that way. "Here's How It Is" 2/7/11

    

   

    

   6. Most neglected.  "Interconnections" 11/29/09

   
   

   7. The post that makes me most proud.  I chose "Not an Open Book" 6/15/11.  I'm proud of myself for not chickening out when it came to revealing the very personal subject matter of this piece, and for having the guts to try an unfamiliar form of expression on an important project.

    

   

   
   

   The five bloggers I've chosen to participate in the 'My Seven Links' project are

   Lynne Hoppe

   Kim Hambric

    Valerianna

   Gwen Buchanan

   Lynne Ciacco