Monday, October 22, 2012

Painting on feathers


I strive in my art to honor feathers and the birds they came from.  Some talented people paint on them but it is not something I am drawn to do. That said, I came across a man’s work that impressed me.  Super Regalia.  He paints mostly to imitate feathers that are otherwise illegal to have—like hawks and eagles; or painted to look like rare and hard to find feathers like the tails of Red-tail Black Cockatoos.  These feathers caught my eye because it is hard to tell them apart from the real thing. He sells them and uses them in Native regalia—fans, bustles, and such.  

Monday, October 8, 2012

Feath, Feather, Feathest



I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker with three different pictures of Jupiter with a caption under each, “Jupit”, “Jupiter”, “Jupitest”.  Which got me to thinking about a piece entitled “Feath, Feather, Feathest”.   Once in a while an aviary bird dies in mid-molt, when its feathers are still growing and the owner gives me the dead bird.  This just happened with a Scarlet Macaw.  Its full grown feather would have been 20 inches or so long.  But this partly grown feath is just 7 inches.  When I take a full grown tail and cut some flying macaws out, it will become feathest.