More about Flying Ancestor

 

There is an ancient relationship between people, birds and trees. I think we are all connected. David George Haskell wrote, “A bird is a tree’s dream of the future” and people it seems are no stranger to dreams about flying. When our ancestors lived in trees, we were especially close neighbors.

 

I’m always impressed by the motion of a flock of birds flings out from a tree and then settles back into it. It’s as if they are magnetically attracted. I remember dreams where I was flying but never far from the ground and as a kid I loved walking in woods and getting only a little lost. Like the pelagic albatross you can wander very far in your life and come back periodically to the same solid ground. Up to a point, where lies the possibility that home will not be there upon your return. So we fling ourselves free from the maternal tree and thankfully always get pulled back.

 

Flying Ancestor is an exploration, a collecting of diverse artifacts from a journey through the landscape/airscape/seascape of memory, giving them a home in its simple youthful frame. Maple branches brought down by superstorm Sandy; imitation gingko leaves and branch, dovetailed with a bit of actual gingko branch; feathers made of hickory and birch bark (white on the outside, coppery red on the other); markings of deep primary color. Flying Ancestor is a casual barter with uncertainty, a simple estimation of the limits of freedom.