Considerable research is embedded in these paintings, yet the viewer’s visual experience is primary. While I often observe birds in nature, most of my research is conducted online—watching videos of their movements, listening to their calls and songs, studying their migratory patterns, and becoming aware of any environmental impact on their species. I translate this information by letting the proportion, shape, and placement of color convey the bird’s salient characteristics.

Each painting in the series is distinct. In the painting, the Prothonotary Warbler, for example, the bands of yellow suggest the staccato rhythm of the bird’s high-pitched call. In the case of the Great Egret special feathers, called aigrette feathers, appear only during its breeding season. These long white feathers, which arc around the bird’s body like a cape, are represented abstractly in the painting by multiple thin white vertical lines. The paintings also reflect the movement of the different birds.  Thus I portray a bird such as a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, which moves rapidly, differently than I portray an American Woodcock, which moves more slowly in a bobbing motion. For millennia birds have been seen as miracles, looked upon as oracles.  Translating their image into abstraction seems a fitting way to tune our attention to their magic, the emergent impressions being a thing greater than the sum of its parts.