A Swan Song  |  Mixed Media  |  2015

I started working on this bird in the fall of 2014. The base is made of concrete and bronze, the bird is a combination of plaster, feathers, wood bark, steel, and copper, and the nest in the tree a tangle of different metal wires. For me, making this was about feeling trapped and not knowing what would happen next. I painted it black because it reminded me of ash and weight. I made it a bird because birds are meant to fly. When I brought my mom to see this she said, “So what is this about? And I probably knew she was going to ask me this, but at the time I just couldn’t figure out how to explain everything that had happened in the past year. Then she said, “I think this is how I’ve been feeling.” I said, “Yeah me too.”