Murmuration

When we lived in the woods we were lucky to experience murmurations, large Starling flocks landing in the trees around our home…. their noise was raucous while they searched for food and rest amongst the branches. Through some communication they would all take simultaneous flight creating a beautiful thrumming sound that I love. There are so many amazing videos and images of these loosely changing flocks. My goal was to capture this in cloth to give the expression ‘loose change’ a focus on nature these rapidly ever changing flocks spoke to me.

Honestly, I struggled the entire time and do not feel my outcome really captures the fluidity of a murmuration. Still, I learned a lot, the challenge was frustrating and tedious, hand- stitching thousands of birds is not for the patience challenged or aching hands. I regretted my background fabric and its darkness all along the way changing thread size to find a solution to the birds not having enough contrast…sigh!

September 23rd I almost gave up to begin another piece with a rapidly approaching reveal date instead I kept going in full acceptance that in the end I would not be satisfied with the end result. It felt more important to finish and share the struggle with other artists and art lovers. It happens sometimes that an inspiration isn’t realized in it’s completion when it occurs it is not completely disappointing there are things to learn along that way that push me to try new ideas…all is not lost.