Birds, crazy as flock.
ICAD 2021 card nine
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Tag Archives: birds
Birdwork In Progress
Here’s something I’ve been working on for a long time. It’s at that fork on Creation Road where I the artist must decide whether to put a LOT more work into it, or wrap it up as a cleaned-up As Is. I am uncertain so I am soliciting input from whoever reads this, i.e. You.
This drawing is heavily avian. The temptation is to throw in not only more birds, but anything Bird-related, such as Larry Bird, Brad Bird, Harlan Ellison’s psuedonym Cordwainer Bird, Nicolas Cage in the movie Birdy, the American Eagle, etc. Maybe throw in an obscene gesture or two.
What is most likely to happen is I’ll do a LITTLE more Bird-stuff, clean it up, post it, frame it, and then consider the use of its basic structure as a springboard for a MUCH larger piece, either a large canvas or a mural. Give the elements a little more living space. Study Hieronymus Bosch and various Breughels to go to school on myriad-detail structuring, then set to on canvas, wood or wall.
Note about the fellow in the foreground: on his chest is a triple=acrostic, “Aero Dyna Mics.” It goes like this:
As Clara Blandick’s Auntie Em
Eliminates Your rootless stem, I
Raise a Sting and fell an Orc
Or skewer Bad Guys with my Forks
Any thoughts on where I should go with this piece, Friends?
birds of a song
These are two birds I sculpted yesterday.
And here are some lines sculpted by Neil Young long ago, for his song “Birds”:
Lover, there will be another one
Who’ll hover over you beneath the Sun
Tomorrow, see the things that never come
Today…
It is an oblique, haunting song about separation. In the subtext is the notion that the one being abandoned will be, ultimately, better off. The phrase “It’s over” occurs four times.
I wasn’t thinking of “Birds” when I did these, but it occurs to me that these two may be best off as friends.
2bird Tubered
Today I left work early and went to Sahuaro Ranch Park, where my sculptured bird is on display as part of the 57th Annual Glendale Arts Council’s Juried Show. I found my bird, “Cockeyed Optimist,” on a little pedestal:
Less than an hour later I was sitting in front of the entrance of the library just north of Sahuaro Ranch Park, and a peacock walked by and then stood in front of me:
As for being Tubered, I have been on this planet for more than 65 years, and only today learned that the word “tuber” comes from the same source as “protuberant.” It delights me that “tuber” is bookended by “pro” and “ant.” Just waiting to be unearthed by a word-digger in need of sustenance! š
4MDB pt 2: Artwork of Artwork
I had my four ceramic birds on my dining-area card table. plus some union insurance info, a copy of Thomas Harris’sĀ Hannibal Rising, two chocolate bars, and a box of soup. I quick-sketched the array and it felt strange, because I was making artwork OF my artwork. But these are strange times…
Four More Demented Birds
I am sick today, but encouraged, because yesterday I was sicker, with a cough with its claws on my throat, and a maddeningly-stuffed, impossible-to-blow nose. Thanks to rest, dried pineapple suggested by my poet friend Sharon Suzuki-Martinez, and a therapeutic breakfast at Bertha’s Cafe, I am better enough to have a realistic hope of going to work tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I’m home, getting more rest, and playing with my recently-sculpted birds the way other children play with Barbie dolls or GI Joes. This is also therapeutic.
Early in this blog-posting journey I did a segment that I think I called “Four Crazy Birds and One Demented Creator. That was six years ago. New birds, but same old Crazy.
the great-souled, lonely bird
I missed Caffeine Corridor tonight. Fell into an exhausted sleep soon after I got home and woke up too late to get there on time, and with necessary laundry to do besides. Alas, I missed my fellow former Monsoon Voice, Susan Vespoli, whose poetic scapes can be so pellucidly magical.
Under “house arrest” while laundry was cycling, I took chalk in hand and did this mood reflector.
not another bird! (riiiiigggghhhht.)
I have a lifelong friend (see “Foom-Bozzle-Wozzle,” parts 1 and 2) who has kept a watercolor sketch of mine, purchased by him for $2, above his commode for more than five years. It is in line-of-sight for any man facing the commode as he steps up to it to do his business. My friend says of the sketch, “It speaks to me.” Here is the sketch:
Birds and spoons have been my copilots in creation for a long time. After midnight last night, I began to sketch yet another bird. “Not ANOTHER bird!” I moaned, and a new triple-acrostic was born:
Nested dreamers rub a dub
Nooks & crannies join the club
Ocelots take no such stair
Often we bequeathe an heir
Trinkets coveted & loom’d
Taking comfort they’re undoom’d
For good or ill, there will be birds (and spoons) in this journal’s future.
Giving Birds the Vote: a Parable
Special thanks to stellar poet D___C____ for thematic suggestion.
Giving Birds the Vote: a Parable
One day some parrots stopped parroting. They spoke, but in sentences of their own invention, and not from mimicry. Somehow, some one or thing had hacked into their birdbrains and downloaded intelligence and eloquence. With help from some sympathetic humans, a delegation of intelligent parrots was brought to the nation’s capital, and through the courts a type of citizenship was fought for and won for them.
Meanwhile, other bird species demonstrated intelligence despite their speech being limited to warbling and other birdsong. Soon they too were talking via prosthetics, and they too became citizens. It was a bit tricky to prove native-born status for non-parrots, but one very smart bird teamed up with Google to develop retroactive surveillance, ironically using the sensoria and memory of birds to “videotape” the births of every sentient, or potentially sentient, being born on or after August 4, 1961, the birthdate of Barack H. Obama. (Yes, he was born in Honolulu. Some of the funding for the project was provided by right-wing groups convinced that he was not. Ouch!)
By the time of the extremely accurate 2030 Census, the birds not only had the vote but they had the numbers, partly thanks to “anchor chicks” from eggs deliberately laid in the USA. Soon humans were voted out and given the boot. Since the birds had a far different agenda than human beings, most industry ground to a halt. The entertainment industry thrived, though. The common ground of the flighted and the flightless, it turned out, was irrational sentimentality.
There is more to the story, but I bawk at continuing.
I and Thou and a Bird in Black Satin, Rejected
Here are the words to the acrostic:
It is wondrous, isn’t it
A soul to keep around & with
Now when the birds tuwit tuwoo
Don’t doubt that they mean You & YOU
No veiled references, no allegory, no twisty wordplay–this is no less nor more than a celebration and remembrance of young love.
I entered one of my latest birds in a juried art show. The poor guy was rejected, and thus we are both dejected. But the elating thing about having a blog is that you are your own juror, and everything you do is juried in. So welcome to my latest one-man, one-bird show!
One with Clay, Image and Text 