turkey feather carving in process
Life is harsh. We come into the world with one guarantee: that we will die. And creatures have to die so we can eat and live. More die for us to have things and go places. Feathers to me are a kind of gentleness amongst all this life and death. After the birds wear them, they gently let them go as they shed. And yet the feathers retain their structural complexity and beauty. I love that. At the same time, the cycle goes on. Each feather grows as a result of what the bird eats.
I am continuing to carve pieces of birds and what they eat. This series is of raptors—hawks and falcons. A cooper’s hawk hunts birds and a kestrel, a tiny falcon, hunts mice.