Published at: 06:08 pm - Tuesday August 09 2011
Have you ever been identified as a harlot?
It has been a year of firsts. It is the first time I have had the nerve to travel extensively alone. I have been back and forth across the country three times, to bird and to work from specimens at a number of institutions. I made my first trips to bird Central America. It is the first year I have spent learning how to draw birds. I can now add the first time I have knowingly been called a harlot. (more…)
Published at: 05:07 pm - Thursday July 28 2011
East Coast, West Coast. The other night I fell asleep to a Western Screech-Owl calling softly out my window. Today I am sketching an Eastern Screech-Owl. I drew a Western Screech a couple of years ago in ink. I couldn’t work in color then. Now, in my new invisible girl state, a person without a home and one rapidly losing an identity, I throw colors around on a screen. Subtle colors, in this case. Where on earth will I settle into at the end of this year? Have you ever been without a definite plan, cut loose?
Above: Eastern Screech-Owl, digital sketch.
Below: Western Screech-Owl, ink on paper.
Published at: 07:07 pm - Thursday July 21 2011
Early morning, in the canyon again. (more…)
Published at: 03:07 pm - Monday July 18 2011
Traversing the country, drawing lines of a sort and making scrawls on a geography vast enough to spur both awe and despair, I have been keeping lists. This is a Big Year. It is not a year in which I am trying to break records for numbers of bird species seen, as that would be ridiculous. I have neither the funds nor the willingness to visit a place – as every place is a Place – merely to tick something from it, and then run to the next place, to tick something from that.
Sightings are sightings however, and records are useful. I like to make my records tangible, give my memories a form. I thought I would share some of my lists from my trip in a few posts this week. It isn’t physical here though, is it? Paper is a beautiful thing, in its physicality, for its tactile qualities. All the little scraps I have collected will likely long outlast me, even if they flutter off to sink into a landfill somewhere. This has become something different; everything has become something different this year.
Images, top to bottom (click for larger image):
Studies of Plain Chachalacas, digital sketch (drawn in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet)
List 01 (Summary): Digital image and ink on paper
List 02 (TX): Digital image and ink on paper (detail below)
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