Bird hop

Secretary bird pillow made as a 50th anniversary gift for some good friends of mine.

The inset materials include tea-dyed burlap, cotton scraps left from my sister's 1980's pajama pants, and a fabric swatch from Mrs. Blume, a decorator friend of my grandmother c. 1960-70.

The top and bottom of the frame is made of Woolrich wool,  and the floral sides are cut from a French wool tapestry sample from the '90's.

                                                                                                           
Upon arriving at its new home, the bird hopped Goldilocks-style from chair to chair trying to find the right fit. This one is tres cool but more anatomically suited to a human than a bird...

                                                                      ... good color and the 1970's tubular acrylic is hip, but it's a little too small.

                     

                                                         
This one is great if you're in a tweedy mood.

Home at last under an Ellsworth Kelly print -- appropriate considering Kelly spent a lot of time as a child bird-watching on a reservoir near his home.  My friends are also avid bird watchers and naturalists, so everything has come together nicely.

Doce de Coco

Burlap, rayon pants, 1960' cotton dish towel, leftover sewing scraps, silk, Italian linen

Doce de Coco from the album Obrigado Brazil.
The clarinet on this song is fantastic!

Bird drawings

I particularly like the eyes on this one, each looking in a slightly different direction.

Birds made from old clothes... in progress

I just started laying these out earlier in the week using old clothes, some of my mom's leftover fabric, and an old tea-dyed cotton canvas shower curtain for the background.  I'm already looking forward to working on a larger scale because it's hard to maintain the clarity of line and shape with such small scraps.
I do love the black.

Reminds me of..

Last week, after I did this bird drawing, I thought  

"She reminds me of someone".

Yesterday Vermeer's "Girl with Pearl Earring" came to mind--  the similarity being the long shape on the right, as well as the positioning of the subject in the frame. The gazes and facial expressions are completely different. 

I've been thinking a lot about how our brains respond to shapes and pattern, as opposed to reading emotions and facial recognition. Both are basic survival skills-- shapes and movement for identifying predators or prey,  and facial expressions for detecting potential threats or aggression.

John Gould: Blue Pitta. Early 19th c.

The bird prints, for me, evoke both responses.  I have a strong visceral reaction to the shapes, colors, and high-contrast patterns; at the same time, I'm projecting myself into the emotional life of the creature, what is it thinking, how is it feeling.  It's the simultaneity of these responses, the sense that I am suspended between  two primitive, but very different reactive states, that engages me and gives me a great deal of pleasure as well.

Birds 30 Sept

Sight and sound

Every morning I sit on my porch with my sketchbook, bird books and coffee, surrounded by trees which I can see, and birds, which I can't. The sound of them is everywhere.  It's an enigmatic pleasure for me to draw birds from pictures of birds while listening to real birds. The act of making an image seems to put me in sync with them on some level.

I occasionally hear cars, cows and trains, but am not inclined to draw them.

Birds.
I really love the birds.

Bird feet

Birds 3 Aug

Birds 12 July

Birds 26 June