put a bird on it.

This tiny body of work was inspired by two things: firstly- the show Portlandia making fun of Portland artists and artisans for using bird imagery as an added value cliche (Kinda like when Dan Cameron, curator at the time of the New Museum of Contemporary Art told me I didn't want to be a "horse painter."  I guess you could say I have a chip on my shoulder.  Anyway, eat your heart out Carrie Brownstein {just kidding, I love your work for NPR}).  Secondly, I found an old sketch that showed a campfire, with figures around it and the words "boys as birds."   Through these collages, I created portraits of certain boys I know as they would appear in the avian realm.  The rooster, vulture, and blue heron have specific mythology and medicine attached to them; and as the collages developed, the research helped me develop an understanding of the archetypes of those certain boys.  The understanding was fleshed out more entirely as I realized that the last bird, the crow, was in actuality my own self portrait.



In Order:
despite all his finery (and the breaking of the dawn).  the view above bleached white bones.  the fox and the crow want to crown you.  portrait of the artist as an old crow.

after the dust settles, then the fire burns

Sometimes, I think I am the orange horse.  Sometimes, I think I am the grey.

A dynamic relationship, that's for sure.


Anthropomorphism is a tricky thing.  Animals make great stand-ins when you want to talk about tricky, sticky, messy, heart-wrenching, but ultimately beautiful things (relationships, for example).  The tricky part comes in, however, when you realize that sometimes the grey horse and the orange horse are really stand-ins for the same person, or they switched colors and stories without asking anyone's permission (especially not the person creating the story).  Tricky, but also entertaining because the story you thought you were telling starts to tell you.


An aside- I like to hide secret messages in collages, cause I find it entertaining.  This one has a nod to my dad's family brand- which is an A enclosed in a heart.  Given, they used the brand on cows and not horses, but still.  Also, I guess it's not a secret message if I tell you it is there...  but then- Where's Waldo wouldn't be fun if you didn't know who you were looking for...