Unfriendly Skies: Birds, Buildings, and Collisions
THE SILBER ART GALLERY Sanford J. Ungar Athenaeum | Goucher College
Rose Anderson Sandy Anderson Miranda Brandon Bonnie Crawford Kotula
Unfriendly Skies: Birds, Buildings, and Collisions
Stephanie Garmey Aaron Heinsman Brian Henry Ursula Marcum Lisa Moren Timothy Nohe Jenny O’Grady Lynne Parks Ben Piwowar Nicole Shiflet Nick Clifford Simko Chris Siron Van Wensil
In the new exhibit, Unfriendly Skies: Birds, Buildings, and Collisions, 17 artists investigate bird deaths in Baltimore. Rose Anderson, Sandy Anderson, Miranda Brandon, Bonnie Crawford Kotula, Stephanie Garmey, Aaron Heinsman, Brian Henry, Ursula Marcum, Lisa Moren, Timothy Nohe, Jenny O’Grady, Lynne Parks, Ben Piwowar, Nicole Shiflet, Nick Clifford Simko, Chris Siron, and Van Wensil mourn the loss of these beautiful creatures and explore elements such as light pollution and building collisions, which kill as many as 1.3 billion birds each year in North America. The efforts of Lights Out Baltimore and related conservation programs provide the inspiration for their work. Lights Out Baltimore is a special committee of the Baltimore Bird Club that seeks to make Baltimore safe for migratory birds. Volunteers monitor downtown streets during migration seasons, rescuing injured birds and collecting fatalities for research with the hope to encourage bird-friendly building design and use.
Our cultures and traditions are interwoven with migratory birds. In mythology and religion, birds are integral to creation stories and myths as tricksters and oracles. They are associated with the journey of the human soul after death, and their mystery graces our literature, music, dance, and visual art. They usher in the seasons and are symbols of power and freedom that adorn flags, stamps, and money. They appear as logos, brand names, and product labels. In times of war, birds carried messages that have saved lives. The joy and beauty of bird color, behavior, and song captivate us. Birds are in trouble, however, and one of the biggest killers is building design. Through bird-friendly design and the simple and energysaving measure of turning lights out at night, we can build in accordance with nature, to save their lives and ours. —Lynne Parks, guest curator
Rose Anderson
Rose Anderson is a Baltimore artist who uses photography to illustrate the connection between humans and nature. Her piece “Yellowthroat Slain” shows one of the bird species most often killed in window collisions. Contrasting life and death, the artist invites the viewer to consider how human choices affect birds and wildlife.
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Diptych: Yellowthroat Slain 2015 digital photography/ digital composition two 18” x 24” chromogenic prints in floating glass mounts
Sandy Anderson Extinction Ceremony 2015 oil on canvas 8” x 28”
In “Extinction Ceremony,” Sandy Anderson imagines an after-world in which birds are extinct and can only be remembered through imitation and conjuring.
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Impact (Nashville Warbler) 2013 archival inkjet print 31” x 44”
Miranda Brandon
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“Impact” had its origins with Miranda Brandon’s work as a volunteer with Audubon Minnesota’s Project BirdSafe, which monitors bird deaths due to window strikes. While collecting dead and injured birds along an urban route, she bore witness to the relatively modern phenomenon of avifauna attempting to navigate the reflective surfaces of built space, with its often-fatal consequences.
Bonnie Crawford Kotula In “Flexible Instincts,” Bonnie Crawford Kotula stitches discarded objects and bits of string into scraps of American Bird Conservancy bird tape, an adhesive that, when applied to windows, prevents bird collisions. Mimicking a bird’s opportunism when building a nest, Crawford Kotula selects materials that are readily available—plastic packaging, webbing for produce, twigs, and wool. Flexible Instincts 2015 ABC bird tape, thread, found materials dimensions variable (each object smaller than 4” x 6”)
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Stephanie Garmey Bird Curiosity Cabinet 2011 wood and silk screen printed glass cabinet, cut paper birds and nest, cut paper book 18” x 21” x 5”
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Stephanie Garmey has always been interested in the slowing of time and the meditative recollection of the regenerative and corroding events of nature. She has made paper cuts and drawings to speak about birds’ fragility and strength in life.
Aaron Heinsman
Aaron Heinsman began volunteering with Lights Out Baltimore in 2014, inspired by the award-winning photographs of Lynne Parks and the leadership of Lindsay Jacks. Struck by the terrible beauty of the bird corpses he’d discover each morning—the rainbow bounty of a macabre scavenger hunt—Heinsman documented the victims of window strikes he encountered. He hopes visitors will be moved into awareness and action.
Common Yellowthroat 2014 C-print 5” x 7”
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Dead Birds 2015 Polaroid Enlargement 12� x 12�
Brian Henry
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Brian Henry displays the fragility, beauty, and sadness of a small collection of dead birds. Using expired Polaroid film and a series of chemical baths, he creates a whirlpool of chaotic textures and light. Lights Out Baltimore raises awareness of the danger of city lights and reflective surfaces resulting in many bird deaths, and Henry symbolically incorporates these hazards in the photograph.
Ursula Marcum
Baltimore artist Ursula Marcum explores the human act of collecting and has long been inspired by the ways in which people seek to collect birds, whether it be scientists or birdwatchers. These works are a way to recognize the tragedy of the loss of these creatures and that there is hope for a safer migratory path though the city.
going, going… 2014 kilnformed and cold worked glass 13.5” x 12.5” (assembled)
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Short Waves, Long Flights 2015 sight specific installation dimensions variable
Lisa Moren
“Rembrandt in his Studio” is both a public art installation and an exhibition for the birds—specifically a red-tailed hawk named Rembrandt who typically lives in an animal rescue shelter in Baltimore City. The exterior glass of the Silber Gallery has been overlaid with film that has been coated with a special chemical that allows humans to see UVB light waves, which typically are visible only to birds and insects. The film’s pattern communicates to birds not to get too close to the potentially dangerous glass windows.
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tardus perditionem 2015 stereo sound
Timothy Nohe Working in a contemporary arts building with a prominent glass “jewel box” architectural feature, Timothy Nohe has heard the dull thump of birds as they crash against huge panes of glass. This morbid cadence marks time in a very sad sort of music, and moved by this loss, the artist has created the work “tardus perditionem” (“slow destruction” in Latin).
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Six Birds: Unsung/Sung 2015 watercolor paper, cotton thread, watercolor, and pencil dimensions variable
Jenny O’Grady
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This work explores the legacy of lost birdsong through book art forms. Each of the six books represents a commonly lost Baltimore bird. When the book is closed, the bird appears to be dead and devoid of color; when its pages are opened, the birds come alive through colorful paper popups and poetry that reveal secrets of the voices lost to the lights.
Lynne Parks
Lynne Parks is an award-winning Baltimore photographer who loves and is fascinated by birds. Understanding the terrible toll current building design takes on these helpful and beautiful creatures, she volunteers with Lights Out Baltimore. Her way of contending with the sorrow of finding collision victims’ unnecessary deaths is through memorial photography, honoring individual losses.
Wood Thrush 2014 archival pigment print 12” x 20”
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Drawing for Nesting Studies (#2) 2015 mixed media on paper dimensions variable
Ben Piwowar
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Ben Piwowar’s work uses abstraction to reflect on fragility, adaptation, and regeneration. His objects often evoke displaced organisms or characters that are collectively negotiating a temporary-but-workable symbiosis with a new environment—not unlike bird populations contending with urban spaces. “Nesting Studies” is a body of sculptures and related works on paper.
Nicole Shiflet
For Nicole Shiflet, characteristics of the thaumatrope (the fluttering, handheld scale, and brief moment one has to steal a glimpse of the superimposing image) are all evocative of the small, complex creatures that are birds. The visuals of abstracted architecture on one side of the thaumatrope and of colors of birds on the opposite side represent two conflicting entities trying to coexist in today’s world.
Flutter 2015 ink and acrylic on paper with string 10� x 3�
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Nick Clifford Simko
Avian Dream 2014 silver gelatin print 18” x 24”
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Nick Clifford Simko’s work considers the role of the male body in visual culture, citing historical imagery in juxtaposition with digital technologies. First introduced to Lights Out Baltimore through his partner, Aaron Heinsman, and inspired by his passion for the cause, Simko photographed Heinsman in a surreal composition amid several species of the collected birds.
Chris Siron Nocturnal Voyage 2015 digital animation of mixed media
Chris Siron has created artwork in various media and has melded his experience as a birder into this particular work, which has as its impetus bird collisions into buildings. This is inspired by Lights Out Baltimore’s efforts in educating the public, city leaders, architects, and urban planners. He hopes his piece evokes a sense of ascent and descent of beings into sympathetic resonance.
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Our Shame Our Responsibility. 2015 mixed media 12” x 12”
Van Wensil
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Van Wensil is farm manager at Myrtle Woods Farm, a small organic farm in Elkridge, MD. The motto and mission of the farm is “grow in community with nature.” With the death of so many of our birds, a large link in our ecosystem chain is broken.
March 31 – May 3, 2015 ARTISTS’ RECEPTION
Friday, April 10, 6-9 p.m. (Artists’ talk at 7:30 p.m.)
THE SILBER ART GALLERY Sanford J. Ungar Athenaeum | Goucher College
DIRECTIONS
Baltimore Beltway, I-695, to exit 27A. Make first left onto campus.
GALLERY HOURS
11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday – Sunday 410-337-6477
The exhibit is free and open to the public.
15337-3606 04/15
The Silber Gallery program is funded with the assistance of grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the state of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Baltimore County Commission on the Arts and Sciences.
www.goucher.edu/silber