Essence of a Rock

Yes, for some reason I don't think they had any Rivercane baskets at this exhibit, the Vinita cultural center is a bit small so maybe that had to do with it? But traditionally Rivercane baskets look like this:

(credit to Lizzie "Nannie" Youngblood and Rowana Bradley, artist unknown for the Chief's Heart shoppers basket)

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to in regards to this post but I am a tribal member who is posting this and these were taken at our own museum within our own territory in Oklahoma. This information provided is provided by our knowledge keepers and elders.

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

back then i made a bunch of these but by now i lost the pic and dont know how to find the original post anymore

so anyway here is the diagram for anyone else who is interested!!

this requires pretty big carboard pieces, if you have a really big box or something you can make it from one piece, but if you don't, you can also just make each of the pieces individually and then tape them together

and then in the end you put it together like this!!

and then when you make a bunch you can put them all next to each other and stack your books like crazy

this is the shit i'm talking about

They will probably only print like 25000 of those dumb bills, like they are doing with the passport (limiting the fallout)

Chef (voiceover): I'm a private chef for a famous billionaire and here's the average meal I cook. I start with chopping some green onions and shredding cabbage, and then I get it into that wok, then I keep chopping some -

Kaiba: Dammit. I lost to him again.

Chef: Oh Mr. Kaiba, welcome home s-

Kaiba: Quiet! Blue Eyes white Dragon nuggies. Now.

Chef: But sir, th-this is the fourth time -

Kaiba: No questions! Just do it.

Chef: *heavy sigh*

2 bedroom, 2 bath, a nice exterior. i like the red door and red chimney!

Wtf is this nonsense???

Why are there 6 rooms labeled bath???

Why are they all clustered together around that one room???

Why does one single room have direct access to 3 of them???

This house was not originally a house. That's why it's weird as shit. It and the house next door were built as a single property in 1948. The 'Master Bedroom' was a glass enclosed hallway connecting the two. See this plan from when the properties were subdivided into two in 1992

Previously, both buildings - which were really one building - were owned by a Robert H Belsky. He sold the building on the left (the main house) in 1992 and retained this weirdo building.

This is the main house (left) with our Weird Fucking 'House' sort of of behind it to the right. There's no listing photos of the main house as the person who bought it in 1992 still owns it, so it's never been listed on the internet.

The Main House is ~3,000 sq ft and has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathroom. It sits on just over 3/4 of an acre and is valued at about 600k