Wise Old Bird

Driftwood, steel rod, feathers and oak

“Wise Old Bird” (Raven) started out as an idea as soon as I found the driftwood shape of the body and I immediately started to collect black feathers.  “All” that needed to be done was adding eyes, shaping the beak and adding two wings.  I was determined to find and use the best matching pieces for the wings and ended up only using three pieces of wood for the bird.  They had to be just the right size and just the right angle to give the bird life.  Once the wings were fixed I had to find a way to support the body in the right angle to get the bird to engage with the viewer.  Again the angle was most important and took a long time to find.  My husband helped me bend the metal supports to mimic the legs. I used toothpicks and bluetack to guide me to the right angle when drilling the base.  The claws were made from the rusty corners of lobster cages found on the beach.  The feathers were then added to the size of the tail and the wings.  Two old oak book ends which I found in a skip in Oxford thirty years ago when working in the Modern Languages Faculty Library became the base.  Leather dye gives the Wise Old Bird its black colour in order to not obscure the surface texture of the drift wood.

April 2024

Approximate dimensions (cm) H50 W57 D29