Speaking of Art Blog

Bird On a Wire, pastel, 12x12"

This is my latest painting where I’ve incorporated a colorless band along an edge, creating what looks like an extra unfinished piece outside the picture plane. It’s actually my fifth in a series of outside-the-picture-plane paintings.  Here are the other 4 that I’ve created:

Winter’s Palette – 2019, SOLD

Song Sparrow – 2024, AVAILABLE

Prairie Abundance – 2024, SOLD

Goldfinch on Bluestem – 2025, AVAILABLE

In each of these 4 previous paintings my goal was to convey the feeling of nature pushing outward on the picture’s boundaries.  When I’m hiking outdoors, I will get that feeling many times, as if branches and leaves and stems cannot be hemmed in. Their striving to grow will break free past artificial boundaries and fences, and will flourish with wild abandon.  If left to grow unchecked and unhampered, only the weather and changing seasons will stop them.

But Bird On a Wire is different.  This painting started out as an idea wandering around in my head looking for an illustration. I finally found it in this scene.  The steel scaffolding is at the base of a transmission tower that stands alongside a hiking/biking trail near my home. There’s a lone scrap piece of barbed wire that winds and bends at its base with a stiff loop sticking out into the air about 7 feet off the ground. The entire tower is slowly but surely rusting. While it is still very sturdy, it is also obviously manmade as it stands alongside a trail teeming on both sides with nature’s abundance – wildflowers, prairie grasses, birds, insects, butterflies, small animals, and tall trees.

Along came this little bird, a migrating Palm Warbler, cute as a button.  It used that handy wire loop as a perch to briefly sit and survey the prairie and see where to flutter to next. I happened to be ready with my camera, I zoomed in, and caught the moment. As soon as I snapped the picture, I knew that I had captured the perfect illustration for my idea.

So, what was that idea?  I wanted to find a scene where I could use a wide band along the edge in reverse of what I had been using it for previously, to push inward instead of outward. This scene gives the impression that manmade objects (that could rust and eventually break down if not maintained) are encroaching on the world of nature and pushing in on it, squeezing it, limiting it. But here’s the cool thing I was also able to include – nature just keeps adapting.  Nature turns even a barbed wire scrap into a perch to temporarily rest on so that it can see where next to fly to and continue its beauteous life.

Nature changes because it knows about and practices symbiosis and synergy and mutualism. Nature is wondrous.  That is why I state on my website, “Nature says it best. I just embellish the tale.” We humans need to remember that we are only one part of nature, part of a much bigger story that was here before us and will continue after us. We must take care of our world and not squeeze or squander it or push inward on it because we might be the ones to rust and break down first while nature flutters off to explore other prairies, forests, fields and places to grow. May we keep our eyes, ears and minds alert to the life enhancing examples set by our world’s greatest adaptive teacher, nature.