Art Theme

My obsession with birds started well before I was aware of it. As a child I liked learning the names for each new one I saw. My mother had a backyard bird identification book with glossy pictures. I referred to it often. The first time I ever saw a vulture was in Florida when I was about 11 years old. The soaring birds I kept seeing high in the sky never flapped and they circled in droves. Believing them to be hawks, I finally saw one fly close by overhead and I caught a glimpse of its bare pink face. It was odd looking, but exciting nonetheless.

I participate in the annual social media art making event called Inktober. Most of the works I create each year are images of birds, as I have come to brand myself as the “bird nerd”. Still fascinated by their lives, their biology, their behaviors, I've illustrated dozens of prompt words related to birds. From having volunteered with wildlife, I have become as acquainted with their lives as with their deaths. For educational programs we often used specimens from deceased animals to teach the public about their anatomy and physiology.

"The interconnectedness between art and research represents a process of inquiry like John Dewey proposed: beginning in an indeterminate situation, with, initially, tentative understandings, through a series of steps whose particularities become known as they are undertaken."

Art is more similar to the scientific method than I had originally considered. It begins with a question, then a gathering of data, experimentation, and some kind of conclusion. Viewers then determine the significance of these findings. In science, as well as in art, poor or unexpected outcomes are still answers.