“Sculpture,” they said. “We think you need to do some sculpture.” They were pushing me to get out of my painter-comfort-zone. It was our agreement as an artist collective: help each other grow. Our group shows were driven by a clear intention. Challenge the art-wheels to exit the art-rut.
All of my life I’ve had a special relationship with birds. Owls show up at auspicious moments. Hawks visit when I need to step back and take the long view. The surprise turkey on our roof, harbinger of good things to come. At the time of my sculpture challenge, I was, each and every day, assaulted by crows.
I read that crows have facial recognition so I told myself the daily assault was a case of mistaken identity. I’d never done harm to a crow. Yet, everyday during my walk, I was dive-bombed. Once, a crow was so relentless that I took refuge in a coffeehouse.
The worst was the day, lost in thought as I approached the door to my studio, at the last moment, I saw a baby crow perched on the door step. I heard them before I saw them. An entire murder of crows came to the baby’s defense. I leapt over the baby and into the studio. They pounded the door and pecked at the windows. They circled my studio for hours. Angry cawing. It was a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock.
Crows seemed like the obvious subject matter for my first stab at sculpture.
I decided to use found objects: wood, wire hangers, newspaper, string, a plastic clamp. India ink and glue.
Creating my sculptures became something of a meditation. As I bent the wire and glued the paper it occurred to me that perhaps the crows weren’t confusing me with someone else. Perhaps their attacks were meant for me. Perhaps I needed to listen. In some traditions, crows are the keeper of sacred law. They are heralds of consciousness change, shape-shifting. They thump you on the head when you need to wake up, when you are not living in alignment with your best interests. That was certainly true of me at the time. The crows were literally hitting me on the head.
I loved making my sculptures. I love what they brought me to understand. My artist-friends were more right than they knew; I needed to do some sculpture. I needed to exit my rut and step into a scary void and, in that way, invite new seeing, new forms, and finally, a new way of being.
read Kerri’s blog post about CROW
crow ©️ 2010 david robinson
Filed under: Art, Awakening, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Seeing | Tagged: alfred hitchcock, art, artist, artistry, birds, change, consciousness, crow medicine, crows, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hawks, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meditation, owls, Rock Dement, rut, sculpture, turkey, void |
The Direction of Intention 
Crows. I was once dive-bombed, right after I was fired (fired!) from a job at UW’s ‘Center for Research On Women’. Of course there’s more to the story of why, but the kicker is the acronym for the center. Uh huh.
HA! I love it. I look forward to hearing the rest of this story. How is it that I didn’t know about your CROW (acronym with accompanying dive-bombing!). Rich!
hi David, love your sculpture, although it would give me nightmares in my house. They are very smart and i don’t cross them at my house. Did you know they migrate daily between south seattle to bothell. Article done several yrs back.
We have plenty of them here, too. They are good alarms, signaling when the hawk or owl or fox is nearby. Thanks for your thoughts! I trust all is well!