I have been crazy busy with life in January, but feel I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, and time for my studio again!
To begin with, a recap:
Immediately after New Years, we had our first major critique at Heartwood. I presented my Alphabet project, and was given a chance to step back and look at the first large body of work for my masters program.
It went very well. I felt that I had truly given it everything I had, and the feedback was both helpful and encouraging.
The next step in the process is to pull the most successful pieces from this collection and expand on those ideas.
I have decided to continue to pursue the idea of memorializing the dead. I see beauty in death, and have always been fascinated by the ghosts that linger in old spaces. Learning from our past and watching how cultures celebrate the dead is a very telling exercise. Graveyards, mummification, taxidermy, burial ceremonies, etc. all tell us so much.
In this first piece, I have again painted bird skins (taxidermy birds that are often a century old), but this time I am focused on songbirds in particular. Along with my interest in the past, I have been paying close attention to the contemporary destruction of songbird populations as well as pollinators (birds, bats, bees). I have embroidered the poppies over the birds as a reference to the WWI poppies representing mourning.
My sketchbooks have been filling up with images of poppies and my Pinterest boards as well!
The next piece will be much more architectural in nature- hmmmm.... We will see how this goes!
Thanks for following!
Cheers!
Kimberly
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