Found wood, paper mache, acrylics, embroidered and sequined felt feathers, burlap fibers
21” tall, 7” wide. (Body + head 13 1/2” tall, 7” wide)

BIRD OF FANTASY

This bird was inspired by the Spanish fairytale ‘The Three Feathers’, as interpreted by the late Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz in her book Archetypal Patterns in Fairytales.
In that tale, birds represent creative fantasies - imagination - without which the soul stagnates. To free herself from this state of stagnation, the heroine faces the typical three impossible tasks.
She implores ‘the birds of the whole world’ to come and help her. Tears, which she asks the birds to shed for her, are seen as the dissolving agent for a psyche frozen in pettiness.
‘Birds of the whole world’ implies that her task is enormous, and involves the unification of the divided psyche of the entire western world.