Red-Wing Blackbird Project

The big project focused on deepening my relationship with the materials I work with in my studio every day, in ways that connect to the natural world.

Grant funding provided by Cannon Beach Art Association.

What if everything is offering us a message from the universe? How might that be acknowledged?

For a while now nearly every time I go for a walk Red-Wing Blackbird or two are calling to me from the cattails. I feel these songs as an invitation to examine some of my assumptions, particularly about how to best show up in the world. This examination process is taking form as the Red-Wing Blackbird Project.

The focus is on deepening my relationship with the materials I work with in my studio every day, through connecting to the natural world. Specifically exploring lessons offered by Red-Wing Blackbirds. This is work as prayer.

Red-Wing Blackbirds are a familiar songbird all across North America. The way they interact with each other and their environment offer many examples of how to coexist within a broader community. They live in ways that model how to negotiate conflict, how to prioritize care for young, and how to celebrate. They excel at both being community members, while unapologetically being true to the self. All skills which are sorely needed in the human world at this time.

Making art using colors I have grown or foraged, to create images of these wonderful songbirds, feels like one way to draw attention to the wisdom they embody. As well as an opportunity to practice and document the entire plethora of surface design techniques in my tool kit.

The goal of this project is to work with very diverse methods, using a unified set of images of Red-Winged Blackbirds. I hope to discover nuances that might otherwise be overlooked. How will Red-Wing Blackbird look as a block print? Silkscreened? What if I weave one? How will the story change when the same image is rendered over and over using different combinations of pigments? Is it possible to express the wisdom of Red-Wing Blackbirds with images alone?

I dream of displaying the birds both in gallery settings, as well as out as ephemeral installations in Red Winged Blackbird habitat.

TIMELINE

The a seed for this project sprouted in spring of 2018, while attending a class with master dye chemist Michel Garcia up in Vancouver BC at Maiwa. The class explored the chemistry of natural dyes and opened up new possibilities for polychromatic dyeing for me. It inspired me to think in new ways about the dyes I was using, and to apply what I was learning into new ways of working. Natural dyes are complex, the order of operations makes a tremendous difference in the end results. The same material can have several very different - and sometimes seemingly contradictory uses. Tannins for instance can act as both a mordant to help colors stick, or a discharge that removes color.

In early 2019 I reached out to naturalist and photographer Neal Maine to ask if he would be willing to share some of his photographs of Redwing Blackbirds. He graciously said yes, and sent me a gallery of images including those of nestlings. His gracious gift will acting as starting points for my own drawings, stencils, carved blocks, and silkscreens.

In Fall of 2021 I was most honored to receive a grant from Cannon Beach Art Association to pursue this project. This grant provides financial support for some of the materials needed to complete part one, a series of large images. Phase two of the project will be an artist book/instruction manual using the images to illustrate various dye methods.

Work on the project started in earnest in spring 2022 - just as the birds where raising their young.

You can support this work by purchasing one or more of the limited edition hand rendered postcards I will be creating each month of 2022. Thank you. See listings in Shop.

May this work contribute to healing in the world.

dye proof

Community Supported Art

If you would like to support this work, I will be offering a Community Supported Art subscription, see listings in Shop Here.

Screens…

The Female Redwing Blackbird is a bad ass.

Thank You to Neal Maine for sharing his gorgeous photos.