Earlier this month I posted another 12" x 12" mini art quilt. I thought it featured a dead gold finch but it was really a Yellow-breasted chat. After stitching this small piece, I realized that I had images of yet another dead bird. Like the dead chat, I sort of promised this bird that I would create "something" from the many images I shot of it ... but, like the dead chat, I hadn't really done it yet.
This period of isolation and social distancing has reminded me of these occasions, of seeing beauty even in the face of death. I decided to stitch a detail of the quail, not the full bird, but I'm posting one of the pictures of the bird positioned in one of my fiber vessels ... just in case I didn't get the species correct like that last time! LOL!
This poor bird died when an avalanche of snow slid off one of the buildings at PLAYA, an art residency program in the Oregon Outback. I had a fabulous month there in the autumn of 2015 and another two weeks during December 2016 ... which is when the quail died. CLICK HERE for a blog post about these two weeks.
(Above: California Valley Quail, reverse.)
I don't have a photo of a few dead wax wings I once found printed on fabric ... yet ... but I might see about this idea soon. During a pandemic one is reminded that life is so very, very precious. Images of dead birds seem to make visible the natural beauty of life and the visceral feeling of mortality.
1 comment:
I like the quail piece and your vessel seems the perfect resting place for that beautiful bird. I'll have to look into this but I don't think our quail are as colorful.
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