Pattern, Painting and a Pig
While painting these last few weeks, there was no conscious concept of a wet spring snow, an old Ford grill, or a pig in a pen, but those images are all imbedded in recent memory, and have shown up on canvas. Simple snapshots that caught my eye, as well as the more laborious and focused photographs of finished work, were all nestled together on my computer by date, and inspired this piece on visual process.
The Pig, and Dissolution Part I
The Ford, the Galvanized bin, and detail of Linear Series - Shadow Barcode.
Song Birds, Ribbons of Blackbirds and the Doppler Affect
A blizzard blew in 12 inches of snow, creating a flurry of bird activity at the feeders.
Within a short time, the dominant Red Winged Blackbirds took over the feeders, leaving the songbirds out on a limb.
We'd kept the songbirds fed all winter, and here it was, a major winter storm, with their food source unavailable, and bitterly cold! I wondered how much feed it would take to have enough for any bird that showed up, and scattered 30 more pounds of seed (20 pounds already out) in ten raised bed boxes, and within minutes, there were ten boxes of Red Winged Blackbirds.
The sounds of their wings thrill. They take flight all at once, the wingbeats fading in and out like the doppler affect when a train going by, a f-f-f-d-d-d-dddddddddd-d-d-f then as they disappear.
The Blackbirds quickly became most interested in the ground seed in boxes. The songbirds returned and populated the feeders!
The joy of it built up until it was a sort of ecstatic energy, that ultimately led to painting, following the ribbons of movement.
In the studio: Six windows of birds, six - six foot paintings (The Bird Ribbons Series) are on the walls, another storm, fresh snow, more bird seed, and a spotted dog - bird movement seen and felt.