Birds, crows, and other aviary

(in the artist’s own words)

Birds, perhaps more than any creature, give me latitude to express human traits that sometimes I am unable to express with portraits. There is something about the “bird condition” that is more expressive (to me) than the “human condition” Perhaps they can fly and we only wish we could fly. Or perhaps the come in so many shape and sizes – from sleek and elegant to gawky and awkward. Once I was traveling to visit a dying friend and encountered a bird staring at itself in a pothole filled with water in the middle of the road. It was a crow transfixed with his reflection. Had I not stopped, surely I would have hit it. That was the moment I embraced the bird as a superior metaphor to express human traits. Like people, apparently birds are willing to die in order to glimpse there own beauty or lack of it.