Birds and Books

Birds and Books

Meets on the 3rd Tuesdays of the month.

The book for September is: Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. 

 From the author's website: https://amytan.net/backyard-bird-chronicles

In distress, I found refuge in nature.

In 2016, racism against Asians became more blatant.  I needed to find calm and resilience.  I turned to the refuge I found  as a child: nature, a place of wonderment and the freedom that comes with play and imagination. 

I returned to my love of drawing

When I was a child, I wanted to be an artist but was discouraged from trying.  At age 65, I finally returned to drawing and took nature journaling lessons with the renowned naturalist artist and educator John Muir Laws. 

I started noticing birds in my backyard.

The birds looked at me whenever I looked at them. I puzzled over their behavior. Do they have emotions?  How smart are they?  What is trust to a bird?    

I began a journal on birds.

I recorded dramas happening in my yard in cartoon-like sketches.  Each observation took me deeper into questions about what birds must  do to survive. Birds also happen to be hilarious much of the time.

I meditated on the life of each bird I drew.

To draw portraits of the birds.  I had to feel the life within and see what the bird was seeing, feeling, and planning as its next move. I imagined what it thought about me.   I thought about survival. 

I reclaimed the curiosity I had as child.

To sketch birds, I did not have to be an expert on birds or art.  I could be naive, open, letting the curiosity I had as a child take me deeper into the world of birds and imagination.  Over five years,  I filled a dozen sketchbooks and nine journals.