Stillness, 2021, Graphite And Flashe On Translucent Yupo, 7x5 Inches, By Heather Lee Birdsong. First

Stillness, 2021, graphite and Flashe on translucent Yupo, 7x5 inches, by Heather Lee Birdsong. First image is the artwork; second image shows the backside of the work.

I finally finished this one. I almost sharpened away the pencil I used for the drawing, as I needed to maintain a very fine point. The backside is painted and shows subtly through the polypropylene sheet.

Hemlock, the pretty plant drawn around the folded polygonal form, is easily mistaken for Queen Anne’s Lace (AKA wild carrot) for the unwary. Queen Anne’s Lace was a favorite when I was a child, part of what made me fall in love with the Pacific Northwest. Hemlock, meanwhile, is said to have received the purplish stains on its stems from the spilling of blood (whose blood varies with the telling), and was used to kill people convicted of sedition and treachery (like Socrates, most famously) in Ancient Greece. It is also used, in careful quantities, in some folk medicines and witches’ brews. Every part of the plant is poisonous, so it must be handled with care.

this was taken around 15 years ago and I still haven’t seen a better costume on an adult

David Bowie’s Junk.

(how to guarantee a costume contest victory)

A secular religion.

This shows a 3 inches square patch, or thereabouts, of a 12 x 9 inch painting in progress. It’s the view out of an imaginary room’s window: desert tree (desert willow?) in the foreground, purple mountains off in the distance, a clear blue sky. The desert is largely an amalgamation of places I remember. The tree is a very specific one — a portrait, perhaps — I photographed on a hike a couple of years ago.

I wound up painting it twice. The first time, the colors were too vivid and dark, and didn’t give that feeling of desert light. So I sponged as much of the gouache away as I could, started again, and wound up with something much better.

Preparation for Being by Heather Lee Birdsong, 2021, gouache and Luminance colored pencil, 24 x 18.5 inches.

I was feeling a bit ambivalent about this one until a friend and fellow artist messaged me with their impressions of this piece, unbidden, and it turned out to communicate exactly what I hoped it would (you know who you are). That is such a validating experience after all one’s isolated agony in the studio.

captain haddock - wc williams