The Art of Birds: Avians as Muse, Myth, and Mentor

7:00-8:00 pm

MABA’s series of thought-provoking lectures continues, this time exploring the many ways birds have inspired artists, from Indigenous Tlingit contemporary glass art and Audubon’s work as an artist to large-scale bird sculptures that use natural and recycled materials to call attention to conservation.  

Speakers will also explore the powerful connection between art and bird conservation, as well as the ways birds can serve as intimate symbols of individual personalities, memories, and relationships that hold special meaning for the artists who depict them. 

These talks, which are free and take place via Zoom, move the conversation around bird art into new directions and invite underrepresented and unexpected perspectives into how we conceive of birds in art. Through these diverse perspectives, the series aims to expand our understanding of birds in art and invite us to consider how artists use birds to tell stories about nature, place, identity, and our relationship to the natural world. 

October 7

Donna Dodson & Andy Moerlein, AKA The Myth Makers: Working at the Intersection of Art and Science to Create a Better World 

Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein, the duo known for building towering bamboo bird sculptures, will share stories, visuals, and myths that come from their itinerant life as sculptors of bird life around the world. Exhibiting both nationally and internationally, the artists known as The Myth Makers aim to link the community to the birds surrounding them, drawing out connections between the human history of a place and the birds that live among us.

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October 21

Kenn Kaufman: The Role of Bird Art in Education and Conservation 

Birds have provided inspiration to artists for thousands of years. And like any other kind of art, bird art may be created for myriad reasons and appreciated in a million ways. But more than most genres, bird art often winds up having practical results in two specific areas: it plays a major role in public education, and it provides support for wildlife conservation. Kenn Kaufman, author of the cult-classic Kingbird Highway, naturalist, artist, and originator and editor of the Kaufman Field Guides series, will discuss the surprising ways that the role of bird art has evolved over the last two centuries and will share why he believes bird art is more essential today than ever.  

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November 4

Robin Crofut-Brittingham: The Illuminated World of Birds 

Robin Crofut-Brittingham, visual artist and author of The Illuminated Book of Birds, shares how birds inspire her paintings and books, and how their rich histories, symbolism, and connections to the natural world have shaped her artistic practice. She will discuss birds in mythology and storytelling, and how she uses these traditions and stories to reflect on our changing environment.

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November 18

The Bird and the Soul: The Art of Jameel Radcliffe

Drawing from his recent paintings, Boston-based artist Jameel Radcliffe explores how birds can function as symbols, companions, and an extension of who we are as individuals, creating a spiritual or dreamlike portraits. 

Jameel will discuss the role of mythology, history, spiritual texts, personal relationships, and the process of bringing these ideas together culminating into a finished oil painting. Through a selection of finished and in progress paintings, he will offer insight into how he constructs his figures and how the relationship between the person and the birds becomes an essential part of the narrative.  

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December 2

Preston Singletary: Raven, Story, and Spirit: Contemporary Glass and Tlingit Tradition 

Preston Singletary is a Tlingit artist and internationally recognized glassmaker whose work brings together the rich cultural traditions of his Tlingit heritage with the possibilities of contemporary glass. Drawing on Indigenous stories, symbols, and forms, Singletary creates luminous sculptural works that explore themes of identity, ancestry, spirituality, and the natural world. In his upcoming lecture, Singletary will discuss his longstanding use of bird imagery in his artistic practice, with particular attention to his recent glasswork focused on The Raven, and the traditional meanings and personal connections that inform these powerful works. 

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December 16

Audubon Redrawn: Discovering the Secrets Behind The Birds of America with Roberta Olson

Considered America's first great watercolorist, Audubon was a self-trained artist-naturalist. Whereas the biography of the legendary artist has been much studied and his contributions to natural history discussed, the sources behind his mesmerizing avian vignettes have been ignored,.

Curator of Drawings Emerita at The New York Historical Society, Professor of Art History Emeritus of Wheaton College, and author of the acclaimed book Audubon as Artist: A New Look at The Birds of America, Dr. Roberta J. M. Olson will discuss how John James Audubon was not just an astute observer of avian species in what was then the wilderness of America, but also a superb artist and proto-conservationist. Her illustrated talk will highlight Audubon’s preparatory artworks he created before the final works that appear in The Birds of America (1827-1838) and explore some of the controversies surrounding his legacy.  

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