The owls are not what they seem.

Dean Martin & Perry Como, Return to Me (1960s)

“Back in my day we didn’t have any of these childhood protective things, we were smart enough not to do stupid shit on our own!” Except your little neighbour, who got the funniest idea at the age of seven, and got his skull pierced when he slipped?

“Back in my day nobody got divorced, we stuck together and fixed our problems!” What about your cousin, who was slowly killed by her husband because she had nowhere to escape him?

“Back in my day nobody had ‘mental problems’, we didn’t whine, we just toughed it out and endured life!” Hey remember that guy you used to work with, who seemed really friendly and normal, and then suddenly hanged himself ‘for no reason’?

“Back in my day we didn’t have any of this ‘gay’ or ‘transgender’ thing.” You did, but your family cut all ties with her before you were born.

Hiroshi Yoshida 

Like, in my area, out of our plants that grow here, there is a certain group of plants that Exists in Forests, and another group that Exists in Lawns, and another group that Exists in Pastures, and depending on certain factors like how far upland it is and the soil pH, you can get a pretty good sense of what you're going to see and you can find environments like that over and over again, with similar combinations of plants.

And then there are plants that are absolute wildcards, that don't consistently exist anywhere because their habitats are only ever created accidentally. Powerline cuts, abandoned stretches of land, roadsides that are intermittently maintained, patches of land with complicated histories of being used for this and that and the other, disturbed and neglected in various ways.

It's like in between buildings there is Space and that space is No Place and most people can't even see it or notice it.

Like, when you start to actually pay attention to what is covering the surface area of the ground in shopping centers, parks, industrial areas, roadsides, there are countless square miles of space planted with invasive turfgrass and maintained with a lawn mower and they are completely unnoticed and unacknowledged.

Love, grief, and magic in the mundane

Misty view of the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan, 1922-24.

We just had an election, and that means there are a bunch of campaign signs littered around everywhere. Almost every single one will wind up in a dumpster, but here's a secret: post-election, pretty much nobody gives a shit if you take them.

If you snag one from the side of the road and repaint it, it can say whatever you want. Make your own political signs, or just use 'em as free canvas for art. They're usually made out of corrugated plastic, which is waterproof, and a couple layers of cheap acrylic paint will cover up whatever's on 'em.

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.

#hello again martin and bosco!! sending you boys round for another go :)

Robert Hainard (1906 - 1999). Couple de Loups à l'aube. Color woodcut. September 8th, 1955.

Ceibwr Lane - Gerald Dewsbury , 2024.

British , b. 1957 -

Bracelet with Grapevine Pattern. East Roman (Byzantine), 6th to 7th Century.