This is a bird I have known for several years. She is a Harris Hawk in the care of Sally, a bird rehabilitator in Austin. Dolly is her name.
Sally takes Dolly to public events to educate people about raptors and Dolly is a good teacher as well as beautiful and awe-inspiring. Alexa took a magnificent photograph of Her at Bamberger Ranch and she graciously allowed me to do this original piece using her photograph as reference. Dolly has just gone into an offensive posture, as someone at the event got a little too close to her for her comfort zone. Alexa captured her just at that moment at a fantastic angle.
Serendipity; how life is so constructed of lovely intersecting circles. I have been a volunteer at Bamberger Ranch for many years. This spring I invited Alexa to come with me to a fundraising event at the ranch. I ended up using her photo of Dolly from that shared trip. I have photographed Dolly for years but the one Alexa took was THE one. Excellent. None of my photos of Dolly compared to the one Alexa took. Shared experiences, sharing creative energy, sharing time and talent and sharing secrets of the heart, new beginnings and ending things that need to be ended. This picture is about all of that.
Sometimes a work of art is well planned and as an artist you really work to make it happen. And then sometimes the work happens to you, you work it, believe me, but when it finally arrives, you see that the work was making you all along. And these are the very best experiences to have as an artist. Desiring to do this picture of Dolly not only forced me to ask Alexa if I could use her photograph, which was uncomfortable because she could have said no, but then it catapulted me into this new presentation of my work. Dolly is so powerful and the energy in this piece was so far outside the bounds of a picture frame that she took me to the next level, to present her in a way that was worthy of her, worthy of her great presence, her nobility, her wild nature. She never got to experience freedom as a captive bird and teacher but her wildness is still in her.
No one can take that away from her.
Maple on Mountain Juniper
All images are printed on acid free 300 lb. paper (Giclees) or high quality acid free photo paper. Prints are sold unframed. Care has been taken to match the images on these pages to the actual prints. However, some variation in color may occur.
