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Some are meditations on a particular species, such as Hooded Warbler, Puffins, Blackburnian Warbler, and Ruby-throated Hummingbird. The collages developed from a mistake that became an artistic breakthrough for me. My initial idea was to make a simple drawing of a little warbler sitting in a pine tree. What evolved was an exploration of the many ways to know and represent a bird, as well as the building blocks (colors, shapes, lines) of visual art. The flipside to all of this life and beauty is extinction. Much of my past artwork has dealt, directly or indirectly, with this devastating phenomenon. If you want to see an extinct bird today, you have to visit a natural history museum. During the 19th century, the specimens in these museums often came from private "cabinets of curiosities." An Amateur Naturalist's Collection offers a glimpse at what one of these private collections may have looked like, with lifeless creatures from different times and places now ironically dwelling in close proximity. |
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