Eccentricities – March 31st, 2011

26th annual juried exhibition by the Scarborough Arts Council. Pieces in a wide variety of styles and mediums have been chosen this year to celebrate the eccentricities of artists and their work. Exhibition runs from March 30th – April 17th, 2011. Opening Reception March 31st, 6pm to 8pm.

Loro y Gato

Last year I shared my days with a pet parrot in Honduras. He or she (you can never tell with parrots) was a dedicated listener and a prodigious stand-up comic with an excellent sense of timing and a flare for the ridiculous. The tiny feathered creature loved clawing his way up to my shoulders for a better view, playing with my earrings or biting at my nose. We respected each other in patience. She or he never mocked my awful renditions of Lauryn Hill songs and I had started to teach him human words and sounds. One unfortunate day while he or she was out of the cage for our regular bonding session, he or she flew a little father than usual. The neighbour’s starving dog seized the opportunity,  jumped through layers of barbed wire into our yard, and had breakfast at my parrot’s expense. It happened so quickly, only the small yelp of a witness child was heard from the
house. I ran outside fearing the worst, hoping for the best. Disturbingly, the last I saw of my companion was a fan of green and red feathers protruding from a white dog’s jaw. I collected the evidence of the tiny slaughter and cursed the inadequacy of my care. The jokes ended, replaced by a terrible sorrow and sense of guilt. Mourning seemed hyperbolic to those around me, and wearing black was more than masochistic in the dessert. In his or her memory, I started wearing only green, eating lots of pumpkin seeds, wearing his or her left-over feathers as earrings, and paying more attention to the free birds around me.
The watercolour illustrations are an homage to the freedom and fragility of birds, to the beautiful memory of my little parrot and his or her amazing sense of humour. The drawings are a whimsical, lighthearted, merge of human and tropical birds, the sublime nature of feather and flight.

ECCENTRICITIES invitation