Research and personal development

Years ago I worked in the very old Yale Lock building in Stamford Connecticut. Because I wrote that sentence I went and looked the building up, I don't believe what it looks like now. When I worked there, it was nothing to walk into the bathroom to the cooing of pigeons nesting, a walk to the other side of the building would be like entering a haunted house, the roof was collapsed, bricks strewn everywhere. Heck, one day I watched lightening enter the south wall of the building and exit the north. I would look out to see a portion of cement fall past the window. Geez. I loved that building.

One day I dropped a 2 gallon bucket of water and before I could get rags and towels to clean it up, the water had drained to wherever it went. That building made me love cracked and peeling paint, wood plank floors, and we were at the height of flying seagulls. On good days I could smell the ocean just a mile distant.

What does all this have to do with a bird skeleton? Well. One day I was walking through the building to buy plantain chips at the bodega across the street and I came across what I assume is a finch skeleton. It had flesh still attached to it. I was, of course stopped in my tracks. My love of and fascination with birds is quite long standing and even then I had it in my mind that I needed a bird skeleton. So I bought my chips, nabbed a napkin and fetched the bird.

When I got back to work, bird in hand, my fellow workmates, fine artists all, kicked into gear. We poured one part bleach to four parts water into a bucket and we soaked the bird clean. I have carried this skeleton in a ring box for years and periodically take it out to draw and consider.

Once again, I can't show the artwork. Bummerish. But I can say, I really like that page!