Birds have always held a fascination for humankind. They have such capacity to move us. The images above are from works that for one reason or another moved the owners to tears.
But why do birds move us so? Such small creatures with almost no weight can work tirelessly to build sometimes quite elaborate nests. They flit about with lightning speed and chatter to one another in complex languages. Their routines are fixed and predictable. Birds are so numerous that within a species one might seem just like another to us...just one more among so many. Is it the paradox of their frailty and strength that moves us? Their world so often mimics ours. And if we ever can get one to let us feed it by hand, we feel honored. Why is this?....that something so frail and tiny would trust us?....that we feel the faint warmth from a little feathered body and it comforts us?
Does this sense of connection somehow inspire strength to persevere when a personal crisis looms? I don't entirely know. I do know this; when a collector* buys my bird painting and tells me that the reason she wanted it was that it made her cry, I feel fulfilled. Not because I need the cash, though that's true. And not so I can brag that I sold another painting, though I did. I feel fulfilled because someone else felt the same thing I did when I painted it.
