Photo Credit: Jennie Anne Benigas
  

 

JUDY'S JOURNAL

 

July/August 2022

An essay, “On Nature” by Helen Macdonald (NYT 12.6.2015) inspired an artwork and a poem.

 

 

 


STOP, LOOK AND THINK #15

Dear Reader,

This is the fifteenth blog in a series written to offer another way to experience art. One of my artworks is below, followed by a set of instructions.

  • STOP, LOOK AND THINK before you scroll down to read each section.

  • Here are a few facts: Title: “Murmurations,” size: 12” by 12” by 2,” medium: ink on clay board, created in 2016. This information may or may not verify or affect your first response. Did you notice more after learning my title? Is there anything about what you see and/or the title that clicks with your perceptions or emotions? Now that you have some details, compare your thoughts and feelings to your first response (image only).

  • Here’s the story: All I needed to do after reading an essay about bird murmurations written by Helen Macdonald (H Is for Hawk) is get my art materials and begin working. The vast undulating formations created by starlings, snow geese, Eurasian and sandhill cranes became her metaphor for a discussion about human migration. While making “Murmurations,” I began to draft a poem in my head, then on paper. Here is the latest version.

    On Murmurations
    They’ve stopped to rest on your shoulders
    Perhaps they were placed there while you weren’t looking
    Maybe you coaxed them there yourself

    Like you, they’re made of solids, liquids, gases
    Contained by protean anatomy

    Fully formed and numerous
    Storied and dressed in woolen garments
    Wet with troubles, replenished daily
    They want to be read, like pages in a book