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E a r l y B i r d s
Ive always had a thing for birds. Take these three drawings for example. I was 4 and 5 years old when I drew them, and I actually have even earlier ones. It manifested itself in my very early childhood not only in bird-people drawings, but also in my complete obsession with dinosaurs. When I was 5 and people would ask me, And what d you want to be when you grow up little girl? I would always answer, A paleontologist. I ran around the house for several years of my life pretending to be a dinosaur as I watched my Dinosaur videos. I had a 4-foot tall T-rex blow-up that was my mother and I made a nest under her. I occasionally went hunting, and would stalk and hunt down my stuffed animals and pretended to rip out their jugular, like any good baby T-rex would, and bring them back to the nest. . . . .
As you can imagine, I had a very early sensitivity for animal/human transfigurations and it wasnt just that I wanted to be a dinosaur, or a bird or whatever, I wanted to be both that and human, at the same time. . . . .another funny anecdote before I go on: When I was about 6, I started collecting goose feathers after hearing the story of Icarus that my father told me. Icarus end never really deterred me and I came up with this huge grand scheme of building myself wings so I could jump off our deck and fly. By the time I had enough goose feathers for one wing, which was actually several years later, I had grown considerably taller and I realized that the size my wings would have to be to fly were waaaaay too big. So I abandoned this effort regretfully, although I never really gave up the yearning or want to do it. . . .
So instead I just made myself into a bird. In my junior year I took a class on the history of portrait painting and of course, one of our assignments was to do a portrait of ourselves. This was a no-brainer. I ended up doing a triptych on 3 panels of wood, about 1 foot by 1 1/2 feet each (the set on the bottom). I included the pictures I took of myself that I used to paint them. No one ever believes me when I say I honestly didnt change that much in my face when I rendered them.
These were also very inspired by Pixars For the Birds which I had became unhealthily obsessed with for months (Im not afraid to admit it). These portraits are the somewhat more sophisticated next step to the paintings below. Instead of keeping my bird people freaky, I tried to make them slightly more light-hearted, but just as strangely off as ever. And honestly, for anyone who knows me, these are the most accurate self-portraits I could have possibly ever made.
This is my muse, my pet bird. She is a Jenday Conure and her name is Tinga. This is a charcoal, graphite and conte drawing on about a 38 x 40 Stonehenge. I have immortalized her in many many of my pieces. She somehow has come to embody not only the quintessential bird symbol in my work, but also my own spirit in my journey toward transcendence.
This set of paintings began a series of bird transformations in my work. As I had mentioned above, I had always been fascinated by the bird and human combination, though at the time I did not have a very good vocabulary as to why. Birds have always been mankinds connection to the heavens. Since very early man began to devise gods and spirits to explain the world, birds have always been held on high for they were the only creatures to ascend above the realm of man. In many cultures they were revered as the messengers of the gods. Even their eggs had a special significance in several cosmology myths, a universal symbol of rebirth.
With such famous personalities as the phoenix and of course, the angel, in their midst, the realm of birds has a special place in mankinds history and theyve woven themselves throughout our many levels of consciousness. All of my life birds have given me wings for my own spirit and out of all of Gods creatures I resonate with them the most. The Bird is my totem animal, my friend and guide through my meditation, imagination and art.
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