Inspirations and Oddities - Second Friday Post - May 11th

First a Happy Mother's Day to all of you who will be celebrating Sunday!



Well, some months I feel like I barely come across one thing that really sparks my imagination and others, like this past month seemed chock full of more than I can handle but I am going to keep it to just a few. . .  in case next month is a dry one. :)



Little House remembered:

This month's media recommendation has got to be one of the strangest ideas I have come across but it is A-MA-ZING!

It's a podcast called. . . Little House on the Podcast

If you remember the show Little house on the Prairie as fondly I do from childhood, this is a must. If like me you have not watched an episode in a decade or more and you think you can't recall a single episode with much detail,  this podcast is going to change that.

The podcaster takes every episode and gives a comical 15 minute recap from her perspective. It's HILARIOUS.

She's witty, sassy and picks out all of those bad 70's tv tropes that we missed as kids but are hilarious to recall now. She looks at it from the perspective of a mom today and from her childhood as well.

Fair warning! She has favorites among the characters and a few she has never liked and she does not hold back. Like me, she loved Laura, not so much Mary, and wonders why Carrie was even around. :)

Best of all, I don't feel the need to rewatch the episodes again myself because in that 15 minutes, she really hits the best of every episode.

Hmm, I'm not doing a very good job of selling it here but trust me, if you loved Little House, you'll love the podcast. She is currently in the middle of season three but that means there are two-plus, full 22 episode seasons to listen to!

The amazing thing is this. Yes, she makes fun of the show, the characters and the silliness of some stereotypes of tv (like how many characters who are "residents" of Walnut Grove, are in one episode and then never heard from again!)  then BUT she clearly has a reverence for the show too and if you were a fan, this podcast will make you laugh AND cry! I promise.


Inspiration is for, or taken from, the birds

I've been working on creating creatures for my fantasy world but sometimes I come across an animal or bird from our world that inspires something else in the fantasy world. In this case, I give you the Secretary birds from Africa. I think those awesome head feathers will make for a wonderful and regal addition to the formal clothing of an elven orders highest office.

A Secretary Bird with it's fancy feathers!

Flashback! 

Remember enamel pins? In my teens they were most prevalent as the little guitar and comic character pins that kids wore on their jackets. They had the metal pin back and the bright enamel colors on the fronts. If I remember right they were like 3 dollars each at most record shops.

Well, When I joined Kickstarter a year ago, I began to notice an uptick in the number of enamel art-pin projects popping up. And now, a year later? It's off the Hook Ya'll!

Here is the latest one that I sponsored, no surprise it's designs are based on the Egyptian Pantheon.

We purchased Thoth and Hathor, they are the two on the far right!
But all of these these, and the other dozen the creator added since,  are beautifully done!  

There are pins for anime, chibi, mythological beings and original designs and characters of all and any imaginings. Right now I think there are at least two dozen or more enamel pin projects going on Kickstarter.

I love when something old comes back around and gets a twist. They seem to be a wonderful way for new illustrators to get their work out there and on Kickstarter, I'd say 80% of them get funded more than fully.

Well, that's it for this week!

I hope one or more of these made you smile!

See you again in a week!

Nicolas
XO

Cormorant

It's a natural experience, living at the Oregon Coast, to see birds of all sorts on any given day.

It becomes such a part of the daily routine to share this space with pelicans, gulls, herons, egrets, geese, killdeer, cormorants, mergansers and kingfishers that I imagine at times I am obblivious to them as I go about my day. . . .

But how quick I can be to notice when something si not quite right with one of them. . . .

. Walking the foggy shrouded beach yesterday we were drawn immediately to a lone cormorant in the distanc. grounded at the surf's shifting edge. The distinctive shape unmistakable.

I think I knew instantly that something was not right. There are rarely lone cormorants with no others in sight. They rarely occupy the beach, choosing instead the rocks and old pier poles of the bay where they can dry their wings and rest while watching the water for small fish to pass by.

Approaching this cormorant, it was now a certainty that it was not ok. I won't go into the entire episode of my interaction hut, it was clear after one slow approach that I was not going to get close to it. I left it alone and walked to a driftwood log to sit and watch it awhile. A few minutes later, as two young boys emerged from the fog and ran towards it, it DID manage to fly using both wings. . . . but only a foot or so off the ground and it would just go far enough to get away from the kids, then land and again stay to the surf line on it's feet.  Occasionally it would swim out, dive under the surf and pop up again a few feet out, only to return with the next swell. . .

Now, cormorants are amazing swimmers so this one wasn't likely "land-locked" by the waves. .  and they are even more prolific fishing birds. Around here, the local fisherman got permission to start a program (as it is Coho salmon season) to "scare" the cormorants away from salmon runs. They use fireworks known sometimes as bird-bangers or bird rockets, to frighten them away. . . heaven forbid the birds might get more fish than the "sport fishermen" before the run is cut off.

Eventually, we had to move on and get back to our work day in the studio. . .  the last scene in my mind was looking back at that vast open expanse of foggy beach and there, with no other creatures in sight, was the lone cormorant. Standing at the surfs edge. . . my heart was so torn.

I can only hope that the cormorant was just stunned by something like the bird-scaring fireworks and was able to soon rejoin the routine of it's flock. It is amazing how one lone bird, struggling in any way in it's environment, can touch me so deeply.  The ocean never looked bigger or more daunting than it did in comparison to that one cormorant.

I know we all find aspects of animal behaviour that pull us closer to a certain breed or species. For me, with cormorants, it is the way they dry their wings after swimming. Yes, they actually dry them. Though it is still quite a debate as to why they dry them or exactly what purpose the drying serves. . .

They dive from the surface, though many species make a characteristic half-jump as they dive, presumably to give themselves a more streamlined entry into the water. Under water they propel themselves with their feet. Some cormorant species have been found to dive to depths of as much as 120 feet. After fishing, cormorants go ashore, and are frequently seen holding their wings out in the sun. All cormorants have preen gland secretions that are used ostensibly to keep the feathers waterproof. Some sources state that cormorants have waterproof feathers while others say that they have water permeable feathers. 

If you have never seen this particular behaviour of a cormorant, I've included an image below. . . that posture, often held for a few minutes at a time, is what  am so drawn to with cormorants. It is something my soul recognizes as being truly divine.

In silhouette at a distance, or close up, it is unmistakable. . .  to see a dozen or more of these magnificent birds in a leafless tree with many of them spreading their wings out like that . . . holding them in that pose. . . it is impossible not to be in awe.

I don't know why I wanted to write this today.  Some things just stick with us I suppose.  Its hard to shake the image of that one bird. Alone on that vast shore. Which is, of course, exactly how I see us all in essence.  It's just our nature. . .

Poem - Starling Spring

In the city, Spring was my least favorite of seasons
Winter kept the streets silent
Everyday rain makes people go inside and
Whether that was a metaphor
Or just a corner bar
Made little difference to me
In my own treasured world
I did not have to bear the cacophony of
Jumbled hearts
Or displaced souls
Shrieking in the night

The downpour of winter was bliss
And every stormy day
Sang as a liturgy of beautiful hours
And unbroken solitude

Today, in this small town I now call home
The sun is a harbinger of the season at hand
Outside my window, starlings are busily going about it
Building their March nests and
Singing their intricate arias to attract a mate
For hours on end the hopeful
Perch and croon
Preen and display
And to my surprise
Their cacophony
Breathes a beauty into the season
I have rarely felt as an adult

Spring, in all it's bustle, is suddenly
A different place
A lesson learned
An old friend
I can embrace
Once again

- nicolas hall 2013

The Weight of Existence

It has been 8 months since we left the city. . .  there are ways I feel the change in a very immediate sense and then, in other ways, the changes are not as noticed until something brings them to our attention.

Yesterday morning, with dawn light just beginning to pour over the coast range,  I sat here looking out the window and watched the sky begin to glow. I turned away to begin my work day and, after a minute or two, I turned back realizing there was something outside the window that was just "off".

A quick survey of the surrounding area told me it was that there seemed to be an inordinate number of gulls and crows flying about.  To see these scavenger birds, along with herons, pelicans, swallows, terns, cormorants and geese is, of course, not at all uncommon. But to see them so close, circling and perched on the wires across the street, calling so shrill in the early morning, just seemed out of place.

As I watched, several of the birds took advantage of the lack of traffic on the road to swoop down and land at, what I then saw, was a dead seagull. It had been hit in the night by a car or truck. It lay on it's back, it's brilliant white wings spread out and slightly upward as if awaiting a deliverance from that hard asphalt spot.

I watched for a minute as crows and gulls approached and, it occurred to me that the crows were busy feeding upon the gull while it's kin seemed to be trying to pull at it's feathers. . . almost as if to remove it from the road.

A few seconds later I could hear the sound of a car approaching on the road and, as it reached the spot, it had to slow. The crows, always keen and aware in busy road conditions, had safely flown up to the wires again but the seagulls, more used to the lull of the bay and the ocean and at worst, a passing fishing boat, did not make a great attempt to get out of the way of the car.  

The car passed by going around the site and, a moment later another approached and I watched the same scene play out.

I decided I could not wait a moment longer and I immediately threw on the first jacket I could find and grabbed a large garbage bag and headed barefoot down the steps and out the door.

I reached the street and saw no vehicles coming. The crows and gulls had returned to their tasks around the fallen bird. They scattered as I approached, again the gulls not clearing the way but just moving along the road a bit,  and I stood over the gull, it's wings spread a full 3 to 4 feet tip to tip and each feather along the span still so perfectly and beautifully aligned.

I bent over and covered the bird with the bag and scooped it up as quickly as I could and, having not thought beyond this moment, stood in the street unsure what to do next.

Before that thought could be completed I was overtaken with the realization that a bird like this, that I had watched and marveled at it being so magnificent and impressive in the air, and even in the prone death pose on the ground, could weigh so little now here in my hands. The thought carried me unconsciously and I found myself then on the side of the road holding onto the bird, wrapped in the bag and I could not help but be fixated on it's lightness. . . and consumed with the thought of the weight of it's existence.

My entire day was affected. . . as was the next and still, today, it hangs there within me. 

8 months ago, and all the years prior living in the city, I would not have noticed "too many" birds gathering anywhere or if there was any rhythm or pattern to their movements at all.  I have loved birds all my life but not since the days of my childhood, when I would lay on my back beneath my grandmothers bird feeder and watch them in awe and wonder as they flew in and out of the tree have I felt that I was truly a part of this life WITH them. . .

There is no going back for me. . . the weight of my existence is growing noticeably and considerably lighter since I chose this place. What it allows for is more room to breathe and to grow, more emptying of the old and unnecessary and a stronger belief, as I often express in my visual art, that there is a theory of flight that just may allow us to, one day, spread our own wings and ascend.

nicolas

Counting Days

I watch the first line come into view out of the heavy coastal fog and I count them

9

They pass and this is followed by another line

7

Moving as if attached to an invisible cable.
Moving as a rollercoaster might as it passes over undulating hills of wooden track.

12,  7 ,  15.  4

Each appears out of the gray, rolls up and down along the shore, dipping above and below the break of the waves then banks at the rise of the jetty and moves out towards the open ocean.  

I want to be closer.
I want to hold this moment

Suddenly the two longest lines of all
33
and
21

Back to back

All move along the same path and all emerge and fade into the fog covered abyss.

I have never seen so many pelicans in my life
These are surely one of the most graceful and beautiful of birds
People think of them as awkward and big because we judge everything by the same standards we defeat our own kind with.

These are magnificent aerial angels who move with the design of the sacred
They do not subscribe to, and are untouched by,  our small thoughts and limitations
To watch them is to be transformed too

But I want to be closer
I want just a minute more to commune

6, 12, 5

Later that day we walk to the bay at low tide
I am still thinking of the pelicans
I know we will see gulls, cormorants, herons and geese
And they are all magnificent
But pelicans. . .

We walk along the exposed mud flats and, around the turn of the bay, we see the sun illuminating gulls resting on the shore

And among them, as we draw closer, the Pelicans are here too
Dozens
Bathing
Sitting
Waiting

A wish answered
This day will never come again
I number it as well
One to remember

-nicolas hall