Infestations Series

We don’t have infestations of wildflowers or flamingos.  Infestation implies vermin… but it’s a human value judgment that a species is vermin or a weed. They are in the way or un-beautiful… or destructive to what we’ve decided to value.  But from outside a human view, they’re simply living, even thriving. Oblivious to our preferences.

In this series I have combined my meditative ink line-shapes with edited prints of (mostly) birds of prey from Audubon’s nineteenth century catalog of American birds. The birds squabble or devour their prey sitting on or between the black ink elements, oblivious to them.  You could take the view that either element could be an infestation of the other, but given human tendencies, the birds are the more likely culprits.

The ink is painted on Arturo paper and cut leaving a narrow border of pale blue. The birds are printed on lightweight Red River paper, all mounted on Rives BFK. (All papers are archival and compatible). The full sheet collages are 19×22” and the narrow vertical format is 13×22”

Details from the two Vertical pieces: