Feathers

“Hope is a thing with feathers” Emily Dickinson.

This poem has been by my side for as long as I have been making art because feathers and all they carry with them have been a part of my creativity too. They are an anchor point to which I can return to before setting off on a new path.

Finding a feather discarded on the ground still sparks joy and the need to pick it up and keep it as  treasure. I have them dotted around my studio, in books, on shelves in bags. Feathers are magic because the have the memory of flight, discarded from the wing.

They are also just beautiful, this is a truth that doesn’t escape me. I enjoy the decorative appeal of feathers.

For my degree show I created a series of large-scale pyrographic drawings of feathers on white backgrounds. The singularity of the feather was important to me, a single feather expanded so that the lines of its form create an almost abstract structure. This motif allowed me to explore drawing as a process and expression of memory which carried me forward into the next decade of work. I've burnt, engraved, drawn and installed feathers and they still seem to hold me curiosity.

Glass feathers.

I still get a thrill engraving a feather on to the glass surface, capturing the lightness of its being within the reflective material. This lends itself to telling the story of how feathers are symbols of grief. Many people believe that 'feathers appear when loved ones are near'. Feathers for them are signs that the person who has passed away is still present in their lives. It allows a moment of reflection and recollection that can bring such comfort that a person may be gone but not forgotten.

The last time I hit a rut in my making, an artistic block that ground me to halt, I returned to drawing feathers to pull me out of it. I created the 100 feather project. I engraved 100 feathers over the course of a few months. The idea was a simple one, I could trust myself with drawing a feather. By removing the decision making, the process of drawing was simplified enough that it was accessible. The act of repetition and returning to the familiar was an exercise which reminded me of what I enjoy about my creativity and allowed me a way back when I felt very lost. I had no plan of what to do with the feathers I have engraved. I have half a plan to fix them together to make a window but the reality is the act of making them was in of itself enough.

Feathers I hope will always be present in some form in my artistic practice because after all hope is a thing with feathers.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.