Picture this:  About 3 hours to study (for the test) and we sit under a tree, overlooking a mini lawn, the sun’s rays pleasantly falling on the ground through the (very)light canopy, and earphones plugged into our ears.  Almost perfect, right?

Not if you happen to be in our college. Half-an-hour of pleasant studying, we are interrupted by a screech. A monkey. And following it are about a dozen more. *Ack! Jumps back 2 feet, clutching my iPod and notebooks.*  The monkey doesn’t seem to do anything. We lug all the bags from under that tree and onto the lawn. That’s when this big blob of murky black leaps. *Eeew. A frog!* We couldn’t sit on the lawn either.

So we trudged off to the biotech block. Sitting outside, we resume our intellectual pursuits. That’s when a few dogs come silently and sit here and there, in silence. A minute later, as if  they were part of some  special mission, about 10 dogs bound for the tree and fight with the monkeys. The dogs try to bite the monkeys who’re throwing fruits(from the tree) on the dogs.  Barks and screeches later, the monkeys were seen jumping on another tree(quite far off form us, thank you.) They disturb these 2 crows; so ensues another battle, between the monkeys and the crows.

That was that and we were off to make more sense of E.G. And yeah, an eco-friendly campus is where we study. Sure.

P.S.: Possession by A.S. Byatt is awesome. Go, read, NOW.

Sometimes I don’t really know what to write about my photos. Half the time when I post photos and write a story I feel like a babbling 3rd grader. Usually I’m feel like I’m just writing, “And then we went here” … “and the we went there”… “and then we lived happily ever after”. I find this boring. I totally admit that my writing skills totally suck. They always have.

When I started this blog late September, I had no intention of writing a blog or blurb about my daily post. My intention for starting this blog was/is to post a daily photo as well as pushing myself to shoot tons of photos on a daily basis in order to practice, practice, practice. Others might call it “finding my edge”. In the early weeks of October, I began to feel this overwhelming feeling of having to tell a story about my photo or why I took the photo(s). I also began to become more self-conscious about my writing skills at this point. So now, I’m at this point of questioning what to do next  with my blog. I can clearly see that it’s evolving, but maybe I can continue to control its evolution? I’m beginning to ask myself questions like, “How do I expand this blog or rather how do I make it more interesting? How do I attract more visitors to my daily posts? I know I’m totally obsessed with daily blog posts and what would happen if I actually made my blog into a weekly blog? What if I posted that best photo in one week instead of the best photo of the day? How do I engage the viewers of my blog in a way that will make them want to Leave a Comment? Why do I want the visitors to Leave A Comment?”

I’ve been thinking that I need to add a weekly post theme like ”My favorite photos on Tuesday” or “Things I most like to shoot – Thursday” or “New blogs that I’ve found and Tri likes this – Friday”. If you’re reading this right now, what theme do you think would be interesting for you to see on my blog?

 I’ve also been thinking that instead of telling a story or writing a blurb about my daily happenings, that rather I’ll describe the reasoning behind my photo. Maybe I’ll describe why I took the photo or what I like in the scene of the photo or just something that I’ve been trying to capture through this lens and I think that maybe I’ve got one photo that will illustrate this idea.

Oh the complexities and dilemnas in life. I think I’ll pour myself another glass of wine.

Check this out.  Some people believe we are reborn over and over and over, sometimes as humans, other times as gods, other times as ghosts, other times as hell beings, so why not animals, and is it really so strange that their behavior should reflect ours?  And were these crows really ‘paying their respects’?  What do you think?

Click the pic

A murder of crows
Dimly lit room, pitch black night
See you in heaven.

While looking out my window this morning I saw something interesting. There were two stray cats, one following the other. The problem was, the one being followed did not like it one bit and so he was constantly turning around and attacking the other cat. What I found amusing was that the other cat would stay still for a few seconds and watch as the first cat continued on his way. But then he would just follow the first cat again, not learning his lesson. This happened multiple times before both were lost from my view.

Look, I'm pretty.

While I’m on the subject of animals I would like to mention the crow. A few years back I watched one of those 20/20 shows that discussed the issue of beauty. Supposedly a crow is able to tell a really ugly person from a not-so-ugly person. Whenever an ugly person would walk by a crow, he would start cawing at it. There was footage of this happening when a guy donned a very hideous looking mask, so there is proof of it happening.

I wish I had never seen that episode. Because it seems to me that anytime I’m outside a crow is cawing. Now, I don’t think I’m a super model or anything (maybe just a model ;D), but I’m definitely not ugly. So why are those nasty creatures making a raucous when I’m around?! I mean, come on! My acne is almost completely gone. Now that is an acomplishment.

Anyways, on towards other items for the day. I think I am going to write an essay about why college in the US should be free. I know, probably not going to work. Might not even get to writing the dang thing. But at the moment I want to try. There must be pros to it being free, right? And I read that Obama has to publish his projected budget this coming February so perhaps I could finish the essay by January and send it in? Not like he’d read it though. Hmm…this will be interesting.

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

- by Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, 1923

That large black bird flying over you …. is it a crow or a raven?  Not sure?  This may help you identify it! 
 

(I wrote this for an Associated Content short story contest. Entries were limited to 800 words, and had to begin with one of three sentences that AC provided. You can see which one I chose.)

Someone was knocking at the door.

At the sound, the birds in the trees outside started cawing again. All that poison hadn’t done a damn thing. Gary sighed, leaned back in his chair and hoped the noise would stop. The knocking and cawing continued. Biting back a curse, he heaved himself up and stalked to the door. He cracked the door open enough to see a stranger in a messenger service uniform.

“Mr. Rhodes? Package. I need a signature.”

Gary opened the door and signed on the line, then took the package inside, set it down and dropped back into his chair. He hadn’t been expecting a package. He hadn’t been expecting anything but paper, after losing his job, his wife and his kids, and missing mortgage payments.

Curiosity won; he opened the box. Inside, amid a shroud of packing peanuts, was a bronze vase. No, he corrected himself as he pulled it out, an urn, with a plug in the top and a blank plate at the base.

He tried pulling at the plug; it stuck. He pulled harder and it gave. Instead of the ash he’d expected, nothing flew out. He examined the box. No return address. What kind of sick joke was this? Who the hell…

Gary looked around, and decided to set the thing on the television. If he’d had a mantel, he’d have put it there, but in this ticky-tacky tract house the builders hadn’t bothered with such niceties. He stood up again, put the urn in its place, carried the box to the kitchen and threw it in the trash. He took a beer from the fridge since he was there, then went back to the living room.

Chuckling wryly as he sat, Gary thought the urn could be a metaphor for his life: empty and blank. He mentally ran through the people he thought might have sent this to him, and came up with nothing. Nobody he knew had this kind of black humor. If it was humor. And nobody hated him enough to try to freak him out. Not that he felt freaked out; just curious.

He popped the bottle cap and took a drink. Urns are definitely funereal, he thought. Either they hold ashes, or they hold flowers at funerals. He drank again. Or people write poems about them, if they’re old. This didn’t look old. The bronze had been polished to a bright shine, although that was getting harder to see as the sun set.

Outside the birds set up a ruckus, and there was a sudden splat against the front window. He got up again and looked out. There was a reddish smear on the glass. He tried peering down, but saw nothing. Grumbling, he went out.

Just below the window was a black bird, its talons curved toward its body. Crow, Gary thought, or raven. No difference, right? He pushed at it but it didn’t move.

He went inside and got a trash bag, then went back out. He poked the bird again with his foot, harder. It didn’t move. In the dying light, he couldn’t tell if it was breathing or not. He put the bag over his hand so he wouldn’t have to touch the nasty thing and picked it up. It was limp, lifeless, so he pulled the bag up and tied the top. Walking into the garage, he put it into the big trash can there. This trash he didn’t want in his kitchen.

He walked into the kitchen from the garage and grabbed another cold one. He went into the living room to think about there might be for supper in the house, then stopped abruptly. The urn was on the coffee table, next to the empty beer.

Gary slowly sat down, setting the fresh beer beside the first bottle. He picked up the urn, and saw writing on the nameplate. His first name, in an old-fashioned flowing script. He hefted it to toss it across the room, but felt something move inside. He pulled out the stopper and shook it gently, then poured a bit into his hand. Ashes. Slowly he returned them to the urn and set it down.

Not funny at all. But who, and how? He hadn’t seen or heard anyone.

From outside the window Gary heard a screeching of brakes and a loud crash. He stood up, then heard a click on the table. He looked down, and saw a curved black talon next to the urn.

Dear God, his last name was on the plate, too. Gary walked to the window, saw two cars intertwined in the wreck. One was his. He knew whose blood was pooled on the street, and as another black bird dived for the window, he thought he knew why.

One way that you know an artist is talented is when other artists are eager for their work. Gwaai Edenshaw is in that enviable position among the Northwest Coast artists who live in Vancouver. A some-time botanist and Bill Reid’s last apprentice, he works largely in gold, although he has been known to sketch, carve wood, and even experiment with animation. Having admired his work since we first saw it, Trish and I recently celebrated our anniversary by buying two of his rings.

Mine is based on an episode in “Raven Traveling,” the Haida narrative of the Trickster’s wanderings near the beginning of time. On the beach, the raven encounters a group of crows. They begin to cook a salmon. The raven falls asleep, but the crows can’t wait for him to wake, and devour the salmon. Belatedly, they realize that the raven will be angry when he rouses, so they take the remaining crumbs of salmon, and wedge them between his teeth. When the raven wakes, hungry for his meal, they point out the crumbs and ask, “Don’t you remember? You ate it before you went to sleep.”

I appreciate the story for its broad humor, as well as its extrapolation from nature; crows really do mob ravens, especially when their young are in the nest. If crows could play practical jokes on ravens, they undoubtedly would. Also, the story is not one of the ones that is generally depicted, like raven’s stealing of the light, or even his theft of the ravens from the beavers.

I suggested the subject to Edenshaw, and waited with all the patience that anticipation would allow for six months until he had time to get to it.

The result was more than worth the wait. Edenshaw chose a style that fits the humor of the story, showing the raven with his beak open and crows rollicking around him, pushing the crumbs of salmon into his mouth and their beaks open in excitement, no doubt chortling with glee at the thought of putting one over on their rival.

Since the raven has teeth in the story, and the Haida storytellers must have had plenty of chances to notice that birds have none, I assume that he must have been in human form when he met the crows. However, the fact that Edenshaw chose to show the raven as a bird with teeth in his beak does not detract, any more than the teeth in the beak of the parrot in Aladdin. It is a comic touch, and the result is reminiscent of the lively cartoons that you see in the margins of medieval manuscripts. I especially like the mischievous crow that is pushing a piece of salmon along the raven’s back(You can see the crow’s beak just behind the top of the raven’s head).

At the same time, I appreciate the economy and skill with which Edenshaw rendered the story. Like a business card (only more so), a ring provides a very limited space for depicting anything, yet Edenshaw manages to focus on the main event of the story, while selectively choosing details so that, while the feathers on raven’s head are not visible, the pieces of salmon clearly are. The detail is all the more amazing when you consider that the ring is cast, not engraved.

So far as I am concerned, Edenshaw produced a ring that is utterly unique, and wonderfully rich in humor and detail. After wearing it for several weeks, and having appreciated the small extra touches with which it was delivered (in a small wooden box, with the promise that the mold would be kept, in case the original was lost), I fully intend to buy more of Gwaai Edenshaw’s work. But if, as I suspect, his prices rise as he receives the recognition he deserves, at least we have a couple of samples of his work to console ourselves.

Annonce : CROWS ZERO : Chapitre 01 sera traduit pour vous avant 2010 !

Après concertation, nous ne sommes “pas vraiment prêt ni chaud” pour traduire la série à cause de nombreuses contraintes telle que le ralentissement de la série principale : CROWS !
Mais pour que vous ayez vraiment une idée général du manga, on va travailler dessus afin de vous fournir le chapitre 01. Donc attendez vous à 3 chapitres pour le mois de décembre.

]]> http://c2c5e5.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/corvidae-crows-ravens-and-magpies-quick-facts/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:23:40 +0000 c2c5e5 http://c2c5e5.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/corvidae-crows-ravens-and-magpies-quick-facts/

I have compiled information regarding the American Crow, Common Raven, and the Common or Black-Billed Magpie in this table.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

In addition, below the table is a great website with audio corvidae vocalizations.

Enjoy!!!

BTW:  Please excuse the table formatting – this is my first wordpress.com table.  Which means the tables will hopefully get better!

————————————————————————————

Family:  Corvidae

Genus:  Corvus

The yatagarasu symbol was used extensively by the pre-war Imperial Japan Soldier Relief League, and I showed a membership badge yesterday. Today I’ll show two more yatagarasu items from that group. First is a set of lacquered wood sake cups.

And here is a close-up of the image. Note that the 6-pointed star has nothing to do with the yatagarasu. It was combined with the bird as an emblem of the group.

These cups are inscribed ‘Showa 11 [1936] January 5th, 40th Anniversary Commemorative, Imperial Soldier Relief League, Manchuria Branch.’

And here is a badge from the same group:

This is labeled ‘Commemorative Badge.’ The case for this badge says ‘Imperial Soldier Relief League, 40th Anniversary of Founding, Commemorative Badge.’

triumph of the shrill —
raucous crows chase
a hawk from the pines

hello nice reederz its dennis the vizsla dog hay wel for now i hav givin up on the folk singers becuz the all seem to have an abnormal attatchmint to cats so insted i hav deesided to tayk tuckers sugjestchun for sumwun diffrent to rite me a theem song and so welkum mister ozzy ozzborn!!!

ok first we wil start off with a meem!!! it has ben a wile sinse we did wun of those this is a wun wurd anser meem wot has ben mayking the rownds i pikd it up from my gud frend s le by the way i am sorry abowt the poor spelling and improper punkchooayshun and kapitalizayshun of the kwestchuns but their wer so menny it wood tayk me too long to korrekt them all!!! so heer we go with my ansers:

speeking of witch it seems that the smal hedjhog wot wuz impersonayting me has run up a verry lardj credit kard bil frum pertchasing his own set of flybal jumps and bokses and so i must tern to my frends the forin bankers for anuther infyoozhun of cash!!!

dont wurry mr ozzy ozzborn wunse the munny arrives i wil be aybel to pay yore songriting fee!!!

ok nekst is the blog buddy award wot the chronicle of woos otherwise nown as the op pack gayv to all there nice reederz!!!

now as yoo can see … um …. hay that award is a bunch of kitties!!!! wel at leest they ar verry yung kitties wot hav probly not yet bekum eevil and jayded like some other kitties i cud menshun *koff* trouble *koff* in keeping with the speerit in wich the op pack handed owt this award i too wood like to invite all my bestest blog buddeez to tayk it!!! eeven if yoo ar not kitties!!!

now finaly as yoo may remember last week we had the posibly kursd or posibly not kursd ra award now i wuz supozd to keep this award sayf for a week and then hand it owt to sumwun:

now as yoo may no …. oh gosh wot is rong with ozzy ozzborn???

uh oh ummmmmm wel thats a rap folks!!!! nothing to see heer!!!! in fakt we didnt eeven hav a sunday awards and meem show tooday!!!! toon in tomorrow for more merry hijinks ha ha ok bye

I opened the coop door yesterday morning to discover that Hope was up on the nesting box counter all alone, tearing up everything in sight and complaining loudly. She seemed – well – hormonal, to say the least. I closed the door and left her to her tantrum, hoping it might result in an egg. No such luck, but there is definitely something going on with Hope.

Hope's demo work on the nesting box counter

She tossed everything to the floor in her hissy fit

After I cleaned up the coop, she went right back up to the nesting counter and started tearing things up again. Moreover, I think I observed the “squatting” behavior that presages egg-laying. When newbie chickenkeepers like myself ask the pros when our chickens will lay, their first question will be “is the comb and wattle developed and turning redder?”. The second question will be “Is she squatting?”

As soon as I cleaned things up, she went right back to the nesting box counter!

Because Hope seemed so agitated, I instinctively reached out to pet her. The girls usually don’t like being pet all that much – they flap away as quickly as they can. But yesterday was different. Instead of moving away from me, Hope stood still and lowered her body as I pet her. I’m pretty sure this is what constitutes the  “squatting” behavior I’ve heard so much about.

Hope does the "squat"

We’ve been more or less resigned to the likelihood that the girls might start laying while we’re away on our trip, but now I’m hopeful that we might see an egg or two before we go. Anyone want to start a pool?

In other news, Taylor and I were baking the CE’s annual birthday carrot cake yesterday afternoon when we heard a ruckus outside. At least a hundred crows had congregated on our front lawn and were cawing loudly. Most of them dispersed when I opened the door, but I did manage to get these pictures:

Why the crow convention? Perhaps a protest against my interchangeable use of “crow” and “raven”. As www.wisegeek.com explains, “all ravens are crows, but crows can be ravens, jays, or magpies.” A raven is significantly larger than a crow, averaging 25″ tall to a crow’s 18″. There is also a color differentiation: according to WiseGeek, “A raven’s feathers shine with a blue or purple tint when the sun hits them. Crows can fluff their feathers into a mane to show off, while a raven’s individual feathers are larger and pointier. Finally, if you see the bird with its tail spread, a crow’s tail curves evenly like a seashell while the tail of a raven meets at a triangular point.” (Jessica, I hope this makes you happy!)

I suppose it’s possible that the crows are gathering to plot an overthrow of our Chicken Kingdom, but more likely it is a typical autumn ritual of flock re-grouping. According to www.extension.org, “One important and spectacular aspect of crow behavior is their congregation into huge flocks in fall and winter. Large flocks are the result of many small flocks gradually assembling as the season progresses, with the largest concentration occurring in late winter.” One of the largest communal roost sites in the country is at Ft. Cobb, Oklahoma, where several MILLION crows congregate each winter.

Plenty 'o crows!

No crows in sight this morning; perhaps they’ve re-grouped and moved on. No eggs in sight, either. I’ve got my hopes set on Hope setting soon, but then there is that old yolk about not counting things before they’re hatched…

Corvus:  A Life with Birds
Esther Woolfson
Counterpoint, Berkeley, CA
ISBN:  978-1-58243-477-3
$25.00, 2009, 337 pages (Hardcover)

I have a love-hate relationship with some of the birds who live in the woods behind my house.  As do all creatures who are enslaved to the ground, I envy birds their capacity for flight.  I love seeing them at the feeders, or in the trees, or at our local ponds and parks.  But I want them at a slight distance.  I don’t like the sparrows who nest in my eaves, overflowing the gutters and leaving their droppings on my front porch banisters.  And I hate the woodpeckers who seem to prefer the wood siding of my house to the wood of the trees.  Their noisy arrival each year has ruined my sleep on many a weekend morning.

So, it was with fascination that I read this book about a family who rescued a tiny rook, fallen from a nest in a neighboring yard and raised her to adulthood, then kept her as a beloved family pet.  The rook, oddly named Chicken, a talking magpie named Spike, a baby crow named Ziki, and other birds have found a home with the Woolfson family.  And, though some of their habits would turn most of us against the idea of birds as pets, Woolfson paints such an endearing portrait of Chicken that we begin to see that birds might have qualities we never noticed.

It seems that Woolfson was drawn to birds in the beginning almost against her will.  She had fear of them, had no knowledge or understanding of their ways, or how to care for them.  But she did her research and learned by doing.  Her birds are not guests in her home, or caged.  She allows them the freedom to be as much birdlike as possible under the restraints of living within the walls of a house.

She describes Chicken’s beauty:    “In time Chicken developed her full adult plumage and became as she is now, beautiful, as are all crows, rooks, ravens, magpies.  She is in every aspect, as they all are, in every movement, a sharp, tenebrous grace in her stillness, in her wings and feet and head.  Corvids’ beaks are balanced, proportionate, burnished and striated like the metal of a Damascene sword.”

She also realizes that many people are frightened when arriving at her door to be met by a bird never seen indoors.  Visitors show fear, ask many questions, and seem at ease only when the bird is taken from the room.  Woolfson has researched the fear people have for wild birds.  She remains understanding, and says, “I was frightened of birds, at the beginning, not simply ignorant.  I remind myself that I was afraid not only of corvids but of doves too, of all birds, for I shared what now appears to me to be this near-universal apprehension, one that lies in not knowing what birds may do or wish to do, an unfamiliarity with their habits, their ability suddenly, terrifyingly, to fly.  The history is too long, the fears and superstitions too deep-rooted for flippant questions.”

She may have been frightened, but she soon became enthralled, and has read many books on bird care, intelligence, evolution, song and flight.  She shares this knowledge, but never in a tedious or scientific way.  Her prose is always straightforward and entertaining as she teaches us all that she has learned.

Woolfson has given much thought to the ethics of keeping a wild bird inside, and keeping her flightless.  She does explain, though, that having been raised in captivity, Chicken would not be able to live again in the wild.  Her adoption was a trade-off:  the love and care that enabled her to thrive also deprived her of her adult freedom.

She gives a great deal of thought to whether Chicken has been tamed, or remains wild.  And these thoughts are with her not only when she is at home with Chicken, but also when she is out walking through town, or when she travels to seek out other birds in the wild to observe their habits.  “I walk past two crows paying attention to some dropped food on a pavement.  They notice me but carry on.  I pass them at an appropriate distance.  We co-exist and do so because we have both learnt necessary boundaries, theirs the boundaries of fear.  Where does wildness begin and how far does it extend?  It’s more than what they are, what we are.  Wildness is a continuum.  Swifts or terns or albatrosses are wild because there is no point of meeting between them and us, but for other birds, the ones who live in greater proximity to man, their wildness is other, knowing, watchful.”

The relationship that has developed between Woolfson and Chicken is possible only because Woolfson respects their differences, and tries to allow Chicken the freedom to live instinctually and remain birdlike, while welcoming her into the home and heart of a human family.  Her recounting of Chicken’s fruitless attempts at nesting and laying are heartbreaking, not only because Chicken is doomed never to know the joys of motherhood, but because while nesting she is too preoccupied to be a companion to the human who loves her.  When the urge to nest has subsided, Chicken returns to her usual pastimes.  “Over the next few days, she returns to herself and to me.  By the first evening, she has come to stand on my knee again.  I look at her long, banded black feet and nails against the fabric of my jeans.  Over the evening, she sinks lower, warming my knee as she does so, head under her wing.  She is even more affectionate than usual, sitting very close to me, preening my hair, calling again from the bottom of the stairs.  She comes to stand beside me as I work, jumping onto my foot under my desk.”

Underlying all of her thought and study is the unrelenting question she harbors of why she and Chicken have formed a bond that she would not have thought possible.  “When I come back from wherever I’ve been, I unlock and open the outer door.  From inside, beyond the inner door, I hear Chicken call greetings.  Usually she is in the hall, or emerges from the study to greet me.  If I’ve been away for a few hours or a few days, she’ll run to meet me with wings outstretched, calling with what I like to believe is pleasure and welcome.”

“She comes, sometimes, when she is called.  I, on the other hand, invariably do.”

I am so happy that Woolfson has shared her singular experience with all of us.

waves of home-bound crows

crest over tops of fir trees

struggling in the wind

The sky is still orange as I type this, so these may be the most immediate images I’ve ever posted! I was concerned that my sunset view might not be as good at my new place as it was at my old. I needn’t have worried. (By the way, it was the crows that were struggling in the wind, not the trees.)

In October, I viewed a documentary about an a creature that has held my fascination for years. A Murder of Crows described the common crow as “one of the most intelligent, playful and mischievous species on the planet.”

After learning that the crow can fashion tools and recognize faces, I became even more enamored with this species.

However, I do not anthropomorphize them into smart and sinister bad boys of the bird world. I am not sure exactly why my head always turns when I hear a caw, or see a piece of art that features the crow. Somehow, they have come to represent certain aspects of myself~ I am curious how they act, and in what way others present them.

My friend Deb recently introduced me to the work of Craig Kosak. Oh my .  .  .  if you are a member of the crow fan club, Kosak’s work is going to cause your feathers to tremble. Technically, he paints the raven. However, articles with titles such as How to Tell Differences Between Crows and Ravens make it clear that I am not the only one who usually treats them as one species. And, indeed, the Corvus genus includes both.

Six Moons ~ by Craig Kosak (used with permission)

Western Art Collector Magazine, in its May 2008 issue, has an article entitled Instinct and Insight, where it reveals the astonishing fact that it was only in 2008 that Kosak had his first solo show, by the same name. The show featured 21 oil paintings, which helped Kosak delve into “who he really is” in a way that he considers “better than any therapy.”

Southwest Art featured Raven and Buffalo 7 on its January 2008 cover  and dubbed him, inside, as an artist to watch in 2008.

His latest article was in the August 2009 edition of American Art Collector previewing his Indian Market show in Santa Fe,  Talisman.

Many things draw me to Kosak’s work, including the following:

1–Those crows (ravens), which are so alive and gracefully posed/poised.

2–The luscious backgrounds, which look deceptively simple at first glance, but carry so many subtle details, including symbols and a rich layering of color. I can’t stop staring at the color permutations of the fence the crow is perched on, in the painting below, or that luminous flower.

Kosak divulges that he uses “lots of glazing and areas of solid color.”

I’ll take five, six, or seven passes at each area of the painting because I want the colors to glow. I do alternative layers of opaque and transparent color. It’s a continual process.

Talisman II was hung, for those fortunate enough to be present this past October, at the Howard/Mandeville Gallery. The gallery offers these insights about Kosak’s work:

Craig Kosak is inspired by the wildlife and landscapes he encounters while traveling and returns to his studio full of experiences to be expressed in his work. Rather than faithfully documenting the flora and fauna, he strives to capture his feelings, insights and emotions from these personal sojourns. Each trip consists of both a journey through the outer world, and an inner journey where he learns more about his own humanity, his spirit, and the world inside. His paintings are about both worlds and how they relate to each other.

Bloom ~ by Craig Kosak (used with permission)

Finding that emotional connection to your subject matter is absolutely necessary for an artist to stay inspired long enough to do the work. But does it translate to your viewers?

For this viewer, Craig, I would definitely offer an enthusiastic “Yes!”

P.S. Sharon Fraser sent me this link to a TED talk by Joshua Klein on The Intelligence of Crows. He tells us, and I quote, that “You should not piss off a crow.” Watch the talk to find out why.

CROWS CHAPITRE 26 : OSAMU DOWNLOAD
Annonce : Mise à Jour complète de la section Crows Download on attend vos avis.
Voici le menu d’aujourd’hui : La fin d’une baston, des blagues débiles, Osamu bien sûr et toujours une histoire de coupes de cheveux xD ! Bonne lecture les amis !
Merci à Evil Ryu pour la Colorisation et le clean nickel de 3 pages, et Mali pour le logo Crows France

Volume 7 disponible en entier dans la section Download qui a été entièrement refaite.
Evil Ryu est le magicien du Clean : il a rendu 4 Pages de ce Chapitre en HD les gars mdr, il clean crows à partir du volume 9 car le 8 est déjà fini.
Mali, le fameux Mali, c’est un artiste en école d’arts du style ” les gobelins” on peut pas trop le test, Spécial thx à lui pour le logo qui est dispo dans les scans.

Hot off the press … the St Anthony’s 2009 Fete catalogue.

The ultimate brain bucket, AFL footy signed by 25 crows players, 27″ computer monitor, dinner vouchers … the list is endless!

READ, ENJOY AND WISH THESE BARGAINS WERE YOURS!

CLICK for Auction Catalogue

I feel slightly like a zombie today. Slow and mindless. I didn’t get very much sleep last night, because I just wasn’t tired when it was time to go to sleep. I crawled into bed with Dragon anyway, because I know it’s hard for either of us to sleep alone, but I ended up just lying there watching “Stepbrothers” on his laptop. It is definitely not a good going-to-sleep-movie, because I find it so damn funny and kept giggling. So, now I am tired and just want to lay around. Unfortunately that isn’t an option. I have to study for the Chicano Studies midterm I have tomorrow, and tidy up the house since we are hosting Dungeons and Dragons tomorrow night. I can’t believe tomorrow is Friday! It seems to have come so fast.

So, I’m sitting here with a cup of coffee (which I probably should not be having at this time in the evening) and trying to re-boot. And I am now wondering how in the hell people can stand to have soy milk in their coffee. I have some that I wanted to finish up, but it has given my coffee the weirdest flavor. I don’t even want to finish it. I suppose it would be okay if you went to a coffee shop, where there’s so much sugar and syrup that you can’t even taste the coffee…but I don’t like sugary drinks very much so this is just bitter and strange. Bad Coffee!

School today passed quickly and went pretty well. I spent a large chunk of my evening yesterday sewing an astronaut suit for an egg. Yes, an egg… 0.O I am trying to be positive and not think about how ridiculous it is that tuition is thousands of dollars a year for me to sit around doing group projects that require sending an egg out in a rocket. Yes, I get to make bottle rockets…fun right? So, all I will say is that I got the thing done, and was glad to give it to my group today. They’re all business and science majors who take everything super seriously and understand all of the math and science we’ve had shoved down our throats. So, I don’t know that they were very happy to be in a group with the artsy English student who couldn’t explain helioseismology to save her life. But, I did get to show them that being artsy CAN get you somewhere in life, because our egg now has a very plush and comfortable suit to arrive back to the ground safely, successfully earning us all extra credit. And that makes me a tiny bit happier.

I also saw the most adorable crow today. He was sitting on top of a street sign, acting very funny. He (though I suppose it could have been a she) was squawking very loudly, and flailing around in a way that made him look like he were humping the air! It made me laugh, despite the fact that I wanted to pass out.

I really love crows. I think they’re beautiful; all glossy and black, like little ravens. (At least, American Crows are all black; it is different in other countries.) I’ve always felt very bad for them. They seem so misunderstood, and are considered to be huge pests by lots of people. I see it as they’re just trying to survive, like everyone else. I can totally understand why farmers have a problem with them though, and I myself have had to clean up garbage they’ve gotten into many times, but I still think they’re adorable They are also incredibly intelligent and handy. Studies have been done where they quickly learned how to use tools and open traps and such, to get to food. And they are one of the most loyal animals I have seen. You’ll hardly ever see a crow alone, because they stick together. They also mate for life, which I find to be so sweet. And they even take care of elderly and sick crows; stronger ones will gather food for the sick or weak, and take care of them until they die or get better.

I lived in the same house from the time I was an infant, until age 13. Two houses up, was a woman named Gerry. She was one of my grandmother’s best friends, and had known my father since *he* was a baby. She was always like another grandma to me as well, because I never knew life without her either. I used to walk up there all the time when I was younger to spend time with her, and I continued to visit even after we moved away. She had loved my mom a lot, so I think she took me under her wing for that reason. She was old, at least 70, but she never acted like it. She cursed like a sailor, spied on all of our neighbors, and wore the most ridiculous orange foundation and red “rouge”, as she called it. She also always smelled like “grandma” perfume. You know the kind…in small glass bottles, always an orange-yellow color, and very strong. I could always smell her the minute I stepped into her house. I miss her…

Anyway, I can remember one summer, a little baby crow fell out of its nest into her yard. Normally when this happens, the birds will usually leave it, and the baby will die. But what ended up happening was a whole family of crows came, sitting in her tress, just watching. Gerry had a very sweet Rottweiler named Buddy. He was bigger than me (and I was 16), and three times as strong. And although he loved humans, he didn’t really like cats or other animals. Obviously there was danger that Buddy would end up hurting the baby crow, and Gerry was definitely afraid of what would happen next, because all of the other crows were watching like a hawk. If he had hurt that baby in any way, they surely would have attacked him. Luckily though, he seemed to like the little thing, and it followed him everywhere, like Buddy was it’s mother! It was a funny sight: a small bird following a huge rottweiler around, while 20+ crows lined the trees, staring daggers and just waiting for a reason to defend themselves. A few hours later, animal control finally came and took care of everything, and the crows all left together.

But ever since that day, they have had a very warm place in my heart

Well, that’s enough of my useless information for one day. I hope everyone has a great Friday!

<3Shii