I want to respect the essence of each individual feather form in my art. That means I don’t trim the feathers or flatten them to a background. All my work is with single feathers, usually divorced from a feather’s overlapping arrangements on the bird.
Two prominent artist do trim their feathers but seem to visually respect their overlapping aspect. One person is Patrick Scott (Navaho) whose fans can visually honor the overlapping tail arrangement of the birds whose feathers he uses.
Another artist is Kate McGwire (from the UK) whose overlapping abstract feather sculptures still can be reminiscent of the nature of way feathers cover birds’ bodies.