Apparently it’s not just birds of a feather that flock together, as 100 artists contributed their depictions of all kinds of birds that can be seen in the local area to the latest Parkside Art Gallery exhibit. The birds aren’t the only ones with great diversity as the artists themselves range from spring chickens to, well, no spring chickens.
The no bird brain visionary behind the exhibit is Tom Godin, who’s long had a fondness for fowl, including organizing the annual bird count.
“If you are here in what I call the golden month. The last half of May and the first half of June, you have a really good chance of seeing 100 species during a moderately busy day of birding within 12 miles of 100 Mile on either side,” he says. “That’s quite a boast in any community.”
For Godin, the exhibit is part of getting his ducks in a row for a full on bird festival.
“That was where it started. So then I thought what are the things that I would prepare and one of them was an art show centring somewhere during the art festival,” says Godin. “This is putting your toes in the water towards a whole bird festival at some point in the future.”
He also wrote an article for Our Canada to promote the 100 species in 100 Mile in a day that he’s beaking about which will be coming out around June or July.
“I think everybody has a passion for birds,” he says, adding that Cornell University declared it the year of the bird.
“Their contention in the first essay about why birds matter was that it’s the last vestige of a world that humans were once integrally connected with. Nowadays even if you live in the city you might still see birds but you might not see much else.”
Many people have told him that if, for example, a hummingbird lands on them it just makes their day, he says.
Response to the request for bird art has been really good.
“It’s ridiculous. In fact usually what happens in galleries is you put out a thing for the community to respond and the way people live nowadays they’ll respond to other things,” he says. “You don’t expect miracles but this to me is miraculous.”
With the age range, it’s a huge cross-section of the community that’s showing their love for birds, says Godin.
“The people who responded make the art show. Without them, there is no art show. It’s not about my art it’s about theirs and their feelings for birds.”
The submissions include everything from unrecognizable abstracts to more scientific renderings depicted in everything from paintings, drawings and photographs to fabric and metal works.
“It’s just what I wanted,” he says. “I didn’t know what to expect.
For those looking to check it out, they can flock to the Parkside Art Gallery on Saturday, April 28 from noon to 2 p.m. for the opening reception with a feeder offering seedy snacks for humans.
The exhibit will be on for any bird to drop by until May 26.
max.winkelman@100milefreepress.net
