Artist Statement
Birds are a big topic these days. Nothing brings us more pleasure than the sight and sounds of birds. In the world of arts and crafts, birds appear everywhere. Everyone loves a bird image or two in their home!
And yet. A strange paradox exists…
Birds are in serious trouble.
With bird populations plummeting everywhere due to the far-reaching effects of human actions, urgent research is being done about how to protect them and ensure their survival.
My interest in making art these days is deeply connected to the desire to educate… to help people understand more about the actual lives of birds and how our (usually well-intentioned) but sometimes misguided actions impact them. To dispel myths. To help us do our best to actually help them survive.
I have begun to feel that when we use birds to make us happy – by watching them, painting them, putting them on our walls – we owe them something in return. We owe them all the protection we can muster. We need to learn how to keep them alive and well – to honor their habitats. We must remember they are wild things with special requirements essential to their survival.
The two major causes of bird deaths in our country are window collisions (especially during migration) and free roaming domestic cats – our beloved pets. These two things alone kill several billion birds a year in the US. We can no longer continue to consider it inconvenient to do everything we can to prevent these needless deaths.
Surely we owe it to birds to put window applications of some kind (bird tape etc) to prevent them thudding into the hard surface of what looks like open space. And to insist on window treatments in our city buildings. Or, to teach our cats to be happy as indoor cats – (“catios” etc.) Many thousands of young birds are caught by well fed cats while they are learning to fly. It is a literal question of life and death for many species. If we love them, it is our human duty to protect them.
With this body of work I am hoping to interrupt our habitual and perhaps lazy expectations of what a bird looks like by introducing various anomalies among individuals. (It is always a good thing to have our habits – of seeing, hearing, speaking – sharpened and challenged!) By encouraging a second look at something we think we know perhaps we can perhaps gain a new appreciation of the vast and precious diversity present in our gorgeous world.
I first became aware of “leucism” in birds with the appearance of a strange looking House Finch in my yard a few years ago. It had unusual white splotches and was very exotic looking. It stayed around my yard for several years and did in fact find a mate and produce young. (One of the questions about unusually marked birds is whether they are still attractive to the opposite sex.)
This led me to do some research about this condition and created an interest in bird coloration in general. I discovered a range of interesting aberrations within the various processes of producing color in feathers. I decided to make an exhibition featuring “birds of a different feather!”
(It would not be a bad thing if we extended this appreciation of different appearances to our fellow humans!)
Birds are not put on earth for our pleasure. They are self sufficient beings living their own unique and vital lives. They are biological marvels with adaptations to enable their flighted lifestyles that make one gasp. We must learn to respect and value their needs apart from our own enjoyment. Working towards a better understanding of their world apart from our own is fundamental to their welfare.
Let us not cease to love them, but allow this love to take us further into how to truly care for them.
It is such a pleasure to be able to share my work once again in Baltimore. I hope you enjoy the images!
Deborah Donelson
June 2024
“Bird Coloration” by National Geographic
*Recommended book for fascinating but accessible information
