More Damn Birds

I'm two weeks deep into grad school and still alive, a bit overwhelmed but still kicking.  A routine is beginning to emerge and the first drop of paint has been spilled on the studio floor.  I feel like this is the perfect place to organize and document the work I will be doing so here goes…

More.  Damn.  Birds.  Seven years ago I began to paint birds.  Like non-stop all the time kinda paint birds and still to this day I don't understand their allure.  So instead of psychoanalyzing my brain, I'm just going to paint more because I want to.

That leads us to the starling painting above.  In 1890 the American Acclimatization Society released sixty starlings into Central Park.  This was their introduction to the US and by 1950 they could be found from coast to coast.  It is said that the Society planned to introduce every species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare's plays to America.  Some species thrived like the starling and others failed.

Next on the studio tour is this dude.  A mega field trip is in store for all of the MFA students next semester - we're going to NYC baby and I'm stoked!  A fund raising scheme has been masterminded which entails each of us to make 10 smaller works to be sold (I'll include details as they surface).  These 5"x7" canvases will soon bear the portrait of that badass owl.  

Above is the first painting I did in Painting I as an undergrad.  I think it's symbolically fitting to paint over it at this point.  At first I was going to work with the structures...

And then I said…hell no, I'm covering up the whole sha-bang!  It felt pretty great and it is still evolving.  These are sparrows and the painting follows along the same lines as the starling painting.  Sparrows were introduced to America in 1851.  They were released in Brooklyn.  To think that every sparrow and starling we see today are direct descendants of those original birds is an amazing thing.