Flicker On and Off, turkey tail feathers
A number of flickers (a kind of woodpecker) busy themselves outside my studio. The two designs I made are inspired both by the birds and by the “flickering” of light. This one is entitled Flicker On and Off. What do flickers do to deserve the name flicker anyway?
Parrot feathers, can you name them all?
We can now choose from 300 individual parrot feather photographs on grey backgrounds to compose into larger posters. Each of these feathers is a separate high resolution image. The sizes are relative to each other. My main interest is still carving feathers and placing them in shadowboxes. That said, I am fascinated by all feathers so photographing them is a good way to closely look at each one.
The posters will have a separate guides identifying each feather.
Sunbittern wing feather from Woodland Park Zoo
This is an example from a new series of stock feather images on grey backgrounds. I have been working on this project for the past month and am up to 600 high resolutions photos. My goal is to compose these individual pictures into larger posters with many feathers. With feathers, solid, uniform black backgrounds are relatively easy to photograph and to perform post-production. A uniform grey background is more difficult to create. Consistent, even lighting is a key. Because the fine downy feathers pick up any background color, the background color cannot be changed without the previous color showing through. So, each camera image has to have the same uniform background color so they blend uniformly with a single grey when joined together with the other feather photographs.
Swan Reflection, mute swan flight feathers
During a time of physical isolation such as when we need to avoid contact so disease does not spread, is a time for reflection for me and many people I know. So I continue to create a series of pieces called Reflection.
In this piece, you likely only see a bird and its rippled reflection but for me it means more. It carries a story of what I have been thinking about, self discoveries I have made, and a feeling of connection with the rest of humanity who has been facing the same threat of a spreading dis-ease.
Like a bird needs to keep its feathers clean and neat, I found that my cluttered studio was getting in the way of my creative process. I am slowly renovating, organizing, and cleaning it. This is an ongoing project that includes building a climate controlled storage space in my barn. More immediately, I put castors on the flat files, desks, and cutting table and moved a lot of packing stuff and frames into my barn for the summer as well as painted the floor. It was just unpainted cement with a lot of stains and marks from previous projects. As a creative sort of person, I thought of all sorts of ideas for the floor, like painting large feather designs using many colors. I opted for two colors with this simple design down the middle. What do you think?
Piercing the Veil #3, 18 x 12 inches, greenwing macaw tail feathers
Indigenous people who lived next to the salt waters of the far northwest USA and through British Columbia and Alaska boated on the surface of the waters to get from here to there and received their sustenance from the waters below. I read an old anthropology article. This world above the waters was described as something of an illusion, the surface was considered a veil covering a more real world below.
As Above, So Below, two carved turkey wing feathers, 18 x 18 inches. Final piece. See the previous blog entry for a video of the carving process.
In Yellowstone National Park a few years ago, the wolf found the elk. The virus has found us and like the elk we are forced to be more cautious.
When death comes to the forefront of my attention, life can take on added sparkle if I let go of trying to hang on. Death then, seems somehow right, a part of a whole.
A bird has to kill to eat to nourish the growth of its feathers. I make art with their gently shed feathers which retain their beauty and complexity.
Yet the birds are still alive.
This is a comfort to me.
A stop-motion video of the top feather of As Above So Below. The next post in two weeks will show the final 18 x 18 inch piece.
Kingfisher and Sandlance, turaco tail feathers, 15 x 12 inches
These four-inch skinny salt-water fish swim in abundance in Puget Sound. Bigger fish and kingfishers, gulls, puffins, cormorants, diving ducks, and grebes dine on them. To escape, they bury themselves under the sands. Sometimes, while walking during a low tide, I notice these little fish squirting from the sand in response to my heavy footsteps. Unlike the herring of the region, not a lot is known about them even though, like herring, they are a vital food for salmon and other creatures.
Keratin is the strongest of animal materials.* Some creatures keep their keratin parts—sheep keep their horns, we keep our toenails (although we clip them a lot), and cats and dogs keep their claws. Some creatures shed their keratin parts constantly—we keep shedding our skin as little flakey dust particles. Some creatures shed their keratin parts regularly—birds shed their feathers and snakes shed their skins.
Skin, fingernails, hair, horns, beaks, claws, spines, hoofs, scales, whale baleen, and most complicated of all, feathers are coverings that protect and assist us animals. They are barriers against disease, scrapes, the sun’s rays, and cold. They provide camouflage, filter out shrimp and fish for baleen whales, and provide protection against predators for porcupines. Our skin, which is largely made of keratin, provides a barrier against viruses. Male antelope use their horns to fight each other before and during mating season. Keratin in claws help dogs, moles, and other creatures dig, and help cats climb. As feathers, keratin keeps birds warm, dry, and able to fly.
Interestingly, sea creatures and insects grow somewhat similar materials for some similar uses: insects grow sclerotin which sometimes they shed as they grow. and sea creatures like crabs use chitin which they sometimes shed as they grow. Only creatures with backbones grow keratin.
wild turkey feathers, about to be plucked
I tend to think that everything has a price, not just things but also time, experiences, and even happiness. There is something wrong here. Because money is the medium of exchange for everything, things like my art become reduced to merely a sum. In that way, a thing is reduced to a concept of worth. So for instance, a horse and my art become interchangeable if they have equal worth. But they are not equal at all. Each has its separate and unique sparkle. Life loses some sparkle if money is my primary way to evaluate things.
That is why I found myself thrilled while helping a friend pluck a turkey. The many, many feathers took on a sparkle when I realized their beauty and abundance while not connecting them in my mind to money. I wasn’t saying to myself, “how much are they worth?”. Instead, they each became little complex and beautiful worlds unto themselves.
Quetzalcoatl detail . green-wing macaw tail feather and shed rattlesnake skin
According to Paleontologist Neil Shubin in his book Your Inner Fish, teeth were the first hard things that developed in any creature’s bodies, even bones. They developed in early jawless and boneless fish like lampreys. The way they developed, by folding of inner and outer layer of skin, paved the way for the same process to be adapted to the development of feathers and also scales and other organs like mammary breasts. He states, “the battery of major genetic switches that are active in this process in each kind of tissue are largely similar. “ and, “We would never have scales, feathers, or breasts if we didn’t have teeth in the first place.”
I am drawn to this idea because it means that we share more with other creatures than we usually think.
Indebted to Chickens . turkey feathers . 15 x 27 inches
Some chickens get to run around in small flocks, eat bugs, scratch around, and generally have pretty good lives. Others are caged on top of each other for maximum production. They have terrible lives. But regardless, I often eat their eggs even though the eggs from birds that get to nibble on grass and bugs taste better. I made this piece because I am grateful that chickens make eggs for us. Thank you chickens.
A bit of playfulness and color for a dark winter day. On days like this, I need some fun distractions which took this form today. Other days it is playing music I like and then dancing around the studio.
Plumed serpent cut from an argus pheasant feather
This is Wikepedia’s list of mythic birds. They seem to have left out a major legendary creature, the Quetzalcoatl or plumed serpent of mesoamerica. God of wind and rain as well as of art and literature; creator of humans and perhaps destroyer also.
Adarna – has healing powers, put people to sleep, and turn people into stone (Philippines)
Aethon – eagle tormentor of Prometheus
Alkonost – female with body of a bird (Russian)
Alectryon – rooster (Greek)
Alicanto – bird with luminescent feathers which feeds on gold or silver (Chilean)
Bennu – self-creating deity, Phoenix (Egyptian)
Caladrius – white bird with healing powers (Roman)
Cetan – hawk spirit (Native American – Lakota tribe of North and South Dakota)
Chamrosh – body of a dog, head & wings of a bird (Persian Myth)
Chol (Biblical mythology) – regenerative bird
Cinnamon bird – builds nests out of cinnamon (Arabia)
Devil Bird – shrieks predicting death, like banshee (Sri Lankan)
Feng Huang – reigns over other birds (China)
Gandaberunda – two headed magical bird (Hindu)
Gamayun – prophetic bird with woman's head (Russian)
Garuda – known as the primordial bird and the progenitor of all birds; vehicle of Lord Vishnu (Hindu, Buddhist)
Griffin – guards treasure and priceless possessions (Greek)
Harpy – ugly winged bird woman, steals food (Greek)
Hræsvelgr – giant who takes the form of an eagle (Norse mythology)
Horus – deity (Egypt)
Hugin and Munin – two ravens that serve as messengers (Norse mythology)
Itsumade – monstrous bird with a human face (Japan)
Minokawa – Giant, Dragon-like bird in Philippines (Philippines)
Nachtkrapp – (The Night Raven)
Oozlum bird – (Australian and British folk tales)
Owlman – compared to America's Mothman (England)
Pamola – bird/moose spirit who causes cold weather (Abenaki)
Phoenix – (Greek)
Piasa – Enormous bird outside of Alton Illinois, memorialized on rock painting;[1] last reported sighting 1973 when the bird carried off two children [2]
Ra – Deity (Egypt)
Rain Bird – bird who brought rain (Native American)
Roc – enormous legendary bird of prey
Shangyang – rainbird (Chinese)
Sirin – birds with women heads, lured men to their death (Russia, Greek)
Strix – owl that ate human flesh (Greek)
Stymphalian birds – man-eating birds (Greek)
Tengu – has human and bird characteristics, name means dog (Japan)
Three-legged bird (various cultures)
Thunderbird – (Native American, American Southwest, Great Lakes, and Great Plains)
Thoth – deity (Egypt)
Turul – mythological bird of prey
Vermilion Bird – (Chinese)
Vucub Caquix – bird demon
Yatagarasu – three-legged crow
Zhenniao – poisonous bird (Chinese)
Ziz – giant griffin (Jewish)
Zu – divine monster depicted as
Random page from my 2019 sketchbook. None of these ideas have been pursued. Maybe someday.
My great fear is not about being able to come up with ideas, that is easy. It is about coming up with too many. This morning, I sat in my studio with my pen and sketchbook with the intent to jot down some scratchy drawings toward fulfilling a commission which will consist of four separate pieces. I did this in a few minutes. During the next twenty minutes, from those four ideas flowed twenty more, which have the potential to spawn 50 more. Do you understand what I am saying? I am excited to make every one of my ideas into art and my fear is that I won’t be able to, which I won’t because I always come up with too many ideas.
Worm Food . 12” x 18” . turkey feathers
My body is made of the food I eat. Same with a bird.
A robin eats worms and reconstitutes them into its muscles and beak and feet and feathers. The leftovers come out the other end and become worm food. In this sense, the boundaries of what a bird is and what a worm is become fuzzy. In the same vein, I suspect that the boundaries of what and who I am are also less distinct than I usually imagine.
Studio Door, dark winter day
You will find me inside this studio door on most dark winter days. The short, dark and cold days please me because the studio is cozy and I want to be there. Not so much in the summer when warmer days beckon.
Greg Bartol and I made the new metal sculpture in his metal shop. I just installed it above the studio door. Thank you Greg!
I learned a new word: “metalute”. It comes from the Mehinaku language, a tribe that still lives in forests of Brazil and means that one is naked unless wearing feathers. I first read about this in a New York Times article (great article on the transformative, talismanic power of feathers, August, 2019) that referenced the anthropologist Thomas Gregor. I found his Mehinaku paper in Portuguese entitled The Drama of Daily Life in a Brazilian Indian Village that was published in 1977 and was able to sort of muddle my way through it with my Spanish.
Every year we print a one page 11” x 14” calendar on heavy paper. They are usually sent only as gifts, not for sale.
However this year, until the end of 2019, I am making this calendar available to my blog and newsletter readers at my cost of $10 which will cover the heavy paper, printing, envelopes, our time, and mailing within the USA. Pay through PayPal or send a check or cash to Featherfolio LLC, 8211 Ayer Street SE, Olympia, WA 98501. Outside the USA, it is $15 and you can use info@featherfolio to pay through PayPal.
