Study in Roadrunner

Gabriel Dawe: Plexus No. 12

      At the Fain Arts Center, Gabriel Dawe spent eight days installing 250 miles of thread with an astonishing outcome. View a video on YouTube of him installing Plexus No. 4.

Plexus No. 12, Gutermann thread, wood, hooks.

When Dawe disestablishes his creation, he displays the thread encased in plexiglass, as shown below.

Random Visit to Past Wild Bird Rescue

      A nice lady asked me to contribute some images I took of the wild birds at Wild Bird Rescue for an article she has written. Searching through albums felt both thrilling and trying, for the pictures reminded me of the wonderful times I spent volunteering for Bob Lindsay (whom I referred to as "BirdManBob") on behalf of Wild Bird Rescue.

Bob feeding a quickly growing Great Horned Owl. He subsequently asked a volunteer to transport him/her (Bob insisted that I personalize the wild birds and to not refer to them as "it.") to Lubbock.

One of my favorites: Bob holds a baby Inca dove.

      Volunteer Pete devotes many hours of his week tending to ducks and geese. Here the Mallards enjoy fresh water. 

       I think this is a baby Mississippi kite. And that is Bob's hemostats handing him/her a small piece of beef heart.

Common Nightjar.

     Terry holds a Burrowing owl. Bob eventually released this owl in a Prairie dog town on a nearby private ranch.

       At first, Bob could not figure out the species of the bird shown above; as he/she grew, it became evident she was a cardinal. 

Yellow-crowned heron. 

Cedar waxwing.

Scissortail Flycatcher. 

Woodpecker.

Chris checking on a baby Barn owl. What a belly!

Chris feeds a baby Barn owl.

      Chris feeds Mississippi kites. This photo, though, does not show the fifty or so kites that surround Chris as they sit patiently for her to feed them. 

A Cliff swallow peers outside the incubator.

Frank gives worms to a nightjar.

A hatchling. Hard to say which species at this point in her life.

     Yellow-crowned heron in an aviary outside, raised from a nestling and now only a few weeks away from freedom.

Eastern Kingbird.

Hungry Purple Martins.

A volunteer feeds a Red-shouldered hawk. The hawk eats pieces of beef heart.

Two robins and a mockingbird.

Tiny hatchlings eating worms from Lila's hand.

Nightjar.

Penny feeds a robin.

Tiny!

Pied-billed grebe.

      In view of the enormous number of shore birds arriving at Wild Bird Rescue in 2011, raising the cost spent by the organization on food, the Texas Master Naturalists volunteered to catch dinner for them.

Moonlit Clouds

First Baptist Church Altar Window

Visual treat on Ninth Street, Wichita Falls, Texas.

Red-winged Blackbirds Singing

Fifty seconds of happy singing.

Neighborhood Red-tailed Hawk

Dissected Strix varia Pellet

        Undigested bones, fur . . . on my drive way. Eek.

     View short footage of a Barred owl eating . . .  from Mark Moran's website "Study of Northern Virginia Ecology" in which you may find other information about Barred owls, including their calls.

         In addition to the Barred owl, we now have a Red-tailed hawk.

Flying Around the Storms

Even in flight one's way home may seem a bit circuitous, rather than in the usual direct line.

Kingcade at the Kemp

      I view Gary Kingcade as the quintessentially altruistic spirit. Delaying his own work in art for forty years, Gary taught high school children how to create. Now retired, he discusses that a singular influence in his life has come during his intercontinental motorcycle rides. Spotting memorials along the highways or along the bottom of canyons, he stops his bike to study them, then allows the experience to assimilate inside him to later emerge as an image on his canvas. "Empty your cup," he says. "Listen to your paintings . . . The good comes out when I listen to my paintings." 

      "Thoughts I had about how things should be done," he said, "I threw those out the window." Kingcade indicated that once he allowed a painting to emerge on its own, he became "a vehicle" to create it. He said that as an artist he "was not the driver." The new techniques that he began to practice excited him, and art became -- not hard anymore -- fun. "I had fun. It just happened. I thought art was hard. It's fun." I think that he experienced his recent epiphany thanks to the freedom of thought and preoccupation from his job as teacher, enhanced by the motorcycle rides.

        Of the acrylic work shown above, Kingcade described the technique to achieve the effect on the canvas: he applied paint, and then covered it with plastic, scrunched it up, and allowed it to dry. "I was tempted to lick the canvas to see if it tasted as good as it looked." 

Dust in the Wind, acrylic.

        Above, I show Kingcade's foray into the juxtaposition of the painted image and structural architecture from the "Yard Gods and Guard Dogs" series, Sentinel, acrylic, wood, antler, metal, string, feathers, and ribbons upon which visitors feel welcome to write their names and well-wishes.

To Scare the Crows, Yard Gods and Guard Dogs series, acrylic on canvas held on the wall by antlers.

Top, 40 Miles to Green River - East, acrylic, four feet long; left, Waterslide, watercolor; and at right, Kaleidoscape, watercolor.

40 Miles to Green River - West, acrylic, six feet long.

Gary Kingcade, at the Kemp Center until mid-March, 2012.

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

         Patrol officers practice motorcycle skills and thus remain efficient and safe. Watch out you speed demons!

Barred Owl Art

      I have a Barred Owl Jackson Pollock living in my tree. 

Barred Owl feces on my driveway.

Poetry: My Own Ideal City

      I love reading Erika Meitner's "Ideal Cities." I read it again and again. Reading it helps me focus on the humanity and easily dismiss the concrete, the dirt, the pollution, the disease, and the crime. Its sweetness comes to fruition at the end, leaving me with feelings of hope. In her honor I write my own "Ideal Cities." Unsurprisingly, my version includes birds. I'm hopeless that way. Enjoy writing your own poem or prose about your version of an ideal city.

My Own Ideal City

No city is a panacea but ideal cities
will have parks where yellow-headed
blackbirds amble back and forth
in front of a webcam triggering
images for children to see on monitors.
Ideal cities will allow the last of
the katana winds to blow someone's
hat off his head and down the street
where a homeless man will scoop it up
and wear it to warm his head when
the snows fall. Ideal cities foster
mice which kittens leave on
your doorstep as gifts. Neighbors
in ideal cities will listen to a
jazz aficionado play his clarinet
off-tune and they will stomp
their feet to his beat and someone
will sing that his wife left him
but could she bring the dog back?
Ideal cities will have large trees
at each corner where children's kites
get caught and then get shredded
by peregrine falcons to build their nests.