May Renewal

Before we leave for Japan, here is a parting shot of Second January Deer's jawbone, surrounded by the greenest of grass.

Perhaps I'll encounter something in Japan that relates somehow to this project. Until then, さよなら!

Closing Reception, Graduation, and now: Japan

Well, the closing reception to the NMU School of Art and Design's Winter 2010 Senior Show went splendidly. There was an amazing number of folks in attendance -- I can't even begin to estimate how many people were there. The gallery was packed, so packed it was hard to move!


I received some excellent compliments on the Useless Creatures series, which meant a lot to me. My mom and dad drove up to Marquette to see the show, but sadly they had to leave the next day before noon. Still, it was great that they were able to see Steph and me, and come to the closing reception.


At nine o'clock, as the crowds started to thin, I took down my six photographs and artist's statement -- it's amazing how quickly the work can be de-installed, as compared to the tedious installation!

Saturday was graduation day, but neither Steph nor I walked. We both were of the opinion that having the closing reception was a good substitute for sitting and listening to a tiring speaker for two hours and wearing a silly green robe (something I already did when I graduated from Huron High School). So, I'm done with college. I've graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Photography.

What next?

I'm excited to announce, for those who don't know already, that on May 9, Stephanie and I will be leaving for Japan! We'll be in Hikone and Higashiome for three weeks in an NMU study abroad program, taking a course entitled Japanese Visual Culture. The class is instructed by Professor Mits Oba, who teaches art history at NMU. We're both extremely excited to embark on this adventure.

For those three weeks, this blog will be on a short hiatus, but will start right back up again as soon as we're back in Marquette. Until then, Steph and I will be keeping a blog about the Japan Trip, which can be found by following this link.

Wings

Earlier this month, Steph and I took a stroll along the strip of sand on the north shore of the neck of Presque Isle Park. First, we found what was left of a ring-billed gull, complete with a couple of sets of crow tracks meandering toward it:

All that remained were the surprisingly spotless wings, connected to a picked-clean breastbone. The sun was low in the sky but extremely bright, which made picture-taking rather tough, especially when my shadow kept creeping into the frame. The sun did, however, provide for some brilliant backlighting on the bones:

The second find of the evening was the wing of a northern flicker. The feathers were very beautiful but the yellows were impossible to photograph accurately! They were more of a pure yellow than the orangey-yellow that shows in the photo. In this case, I wish I could have photographed it on a cloudy day.

Often, the wings are the only bird remains that we find. Predators know that there is little meat to be had on the wings, so they leave them behind; mammalian and bird scavengers know this, as well. It is up to the smaller scavengers -- the insects and microbes -- to complete the process of decay.

A Week of Birds

As I detailed in my earlier entry, last Wednesday, Steph found a Brown Creeper that had collided with the windows of the NMU art building. Tiny and weightless, it was incredibly hard to photograph. The pictures I took, despite trying to portray the bird from a neutral point of view, still feel very sad; perhaps it is because I know exactly how the creeper died -- and how needless and avoidable the death could have been.

A couple days later, while walking along a path in Marquette's Fit Strip, Steph and I happened upon something quite unexpected -- a dead Ring-Billed Gull, right on the trail. The bodies of gulls are a rather common find along the beach, but not in the forest. The gull we found had died quite recently; its feathers were strewn for several yards alongside the trail. I flipped the body over, and there was a large patch of feathers missing. It's quite possible that the gull was attacked by another bird, perhaps a crow or a raven. Nothing was eaten.

Indeed, the gull had died so recently that its eyes were intact. It was quite jarring when, upon a closer view of the body, I saw its yellow eye, staring right back at me.

Yesterday evening was the find that truly saddened and angered me: a Black-Capped Chickadee, dead, resting on the ground by the back entrance of the art building. It, too, had collided with the windows.

The chickadee's tiny body was still warm.

Windowed Stairwells

Yesterday morning, Steph called to tell me that she'd found a dead Brown Creeper laying on the pavement behind the NMU art building. The bird was in almost the same spot that we'd found a white-breasted nuthatch a year or so earlier, and there was no doubt as to what had killed it: the tall, windowed stairwells of the art building. (The stairwell at the front of the building can be seen here; the stairwell at the back of the building faces Lake Superior and Presque Isle.)

Nothing could have prepared me for how tiny, weightless, and delicate this bird was. I'd seen Brown Creepers before, but never so close; its beak and claws were surprisingly long and sharp, perfectly adapted to how this species of bird lives, clinging to vertical tree trunks and extracting insects from the nooks and crannies of the bark. Despite the apparent delicateness and fragility of this being, I was astonished to learn that they inhabit Marquette year-round, even through the most bitter of winters.

I took a photograph of the creeper right away, the morning sunlight giving it a bizarre and almost foreboding shadow. The glass stairwells have obviously claimed more than just the lives of the nuthatch and the creeper, and the fact that there are no vinyl clings to deter birds is sad. How many more lives will be lost just because the glass looks good? How much would it cost to put up the most basic of bird-deterring static clings?

Later that day, I hung up two 16"x12" posters inside the art building:


This is the first occasion I've done public protest art in any form. A few times, I've considered taking this project in that direction, but I don't think that will happen.

On the way in to class today, we found this in the same area, near the glass stairwell:

I'm not sure what type of bird this wing fragment belonged to, but I'd say it was in the house sparrow- to robin-sized range. Over the years, I've found multiple wing fragments littered around the back of the art building, all near that windowed stairwell.