ARTIST STATEMENT

My first memories of birds are with my nana, watching the hummingbirds flit at the feeders hanging from the well at my great aunt’s home in Virginia. Nana and I would sit in silence, in awe, as we listened to the hummingbirds slam their small, delicate bodies into others for their chance at the feeders. Watching birds has always been an escape, a moment of calm, a moment of rest. Tender is the News of Spring is a grouping of predator and prey. Pursuit and capture tell a story of manipulation, fear, and hope for the future. I study the way these animals move and interact with their environments to tell their story and for them to in turn, tell mine. 

After being assaulted, I turned to nature, more specifically bird watching, to help cope and distract from the pain that I was in. I began to draw birds and research how they interacted with one another. Somehow more complex than color and pattern, and more sincere than a birdsong, I learned they mourn. And they learn. And they linger. In this room, a conventicle of magpies brings offerings to a member’s funeral in honor and mourning; the pheasant, stiffly presenting its plumage, is viciously poked to rouse the dead; a grounded robin is stalked through a grassy field; all under the patient eye of the owl, waiting. The hummingbird hangs as a trophy. As a prize, the loss of her life is of no concern. She still has a glimmer of life, ever so swaying. Maybe her last breath can be heard in the quiet. Much like the persistent echos of trauma that refuse to fade, the persistence of death lingers in her. The persistence has taken her body. The persistence has taken her flight. Peace and tranquility echo through these bodies, there is hope, there is trust, there is learning.  

I use cut-out contours of these animals and their settings to bring myself and their viewers into their world. Giving life and dimension to the wood paneling and cardboard that I use to portray these delicate creatures. I choose mulberry paper for my pieces due to the intensive, tactile production of the paper and how it aides in the cathartic release of emulating the soft, delicate, feathery texture of the birds and the fox. I spend time with these birds dead and alive, studying each individual feather, using colored pencil and mulberry paper to tell stories of these animals and of my own.