Scrambled birds

Post # 3 about the 2008 Eastside Culture Crawl. Previous posts: Crawling at the Wilder Snail, and Sweeping nudes and other mix-ups.


A few Crawly birds for your consideration:

The crow is an appropriate place to start; it is, perhaps, the signature bird of Strathcona. Look any direction for a minute or two in the daytime, and you'll see one. And often, it is doing something like this:

"Stealing Time", by Sandra Bilawich

Of course, most of the crows work on something a bit more organic than old clocks.

Sandra Bilawich combines stone, metal, and wood in imaginative sculptures. Most, like this crow, are made with reclaimed materials. Many, again like the crow, pull objects out of their customary contexts.

Her Crawl display filled her living room and kitchen. I loved the coffee table and candlestick:

Recycled boards, rusty metal "teeth", rock. Insulator and gears.

Not all is rustic, though. The display included polished sculptures in luscious marbles:

"Camouflage", Vancouver Island marble

But I promised you birds. The small sculpture on the coffee table is a loon, in Italian marble.

And here's a cuckoo clock, in the kitchen:

Reclaimed metal parts, beach stone, with barnacles (click for full size)

Sandra writes,

"The creation of the cuckoo clocks began as a joke. Friends would come to visit and express frustration at never knowing the time. So I built something based on the old barber's clock where the face and movement are backwards and must be looked at through a mirror."

A bird needs a bird bath. We took this photo in Sandra's garden last summer:



Her website is Elemental Designs. Beautiful work!

On with the Crawl.

Passing the schoolyard, I heard the sounds of children at play. The squeak of swing chains, of bent bicycle wheels, the dying groans of battered skateboards (I've seen the remains, decently interred in a garden across the street). But it was Saturday, and the playground was empty. Ghosts?

No. Starlings. Hiding in the evergreens on the corner and spooking the passersby.


A few came out for air and perched on the bare branches. Mystery solved. (I didn't believe in ghosts of skateboards, anyhow.)

Around the corner, we stopped in Kathleen Barrett's house to see her work. More on that later, but since we're looking at birds, can you identify this one?

Collage of found objects. With bird skull.

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