John James Audubon and Me

 It’s hard to express the depth and breadth of John James Audubon’s influence on my bird paintings. Thanks to my parents, Audubon was the first painter whose work I studied, quickly followed by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. I can’t imagine a better introduction to bird painting, for each of these peerless artists turned to the living bird itself for inspiration and information. 

Here's an Audubon of northern mockingbirds attacking a rattlesnake at their nest. Audubon got criticized for having the rattler in a tree, but they do climb, and he knew that, and he stuck to his guns, creating an incredibly vibrant work of art. Just look at the bird facing down the snake's fangs. That's a mockingbird for you--fearless, full of vinegar, and (by the way) perfect in every detail.

 

 Understand that in the early 19th century, John James Audubon was painting birds much better than anybody, anywhere, anytime, had ever done. He drew and painted them so well that his images still stand head and shoulders above most of the bird paintings being done today, even with the benefit of all the insanely good reference we have. And he had no photographs to refer to. He didn't even have a pair of binoculars! All he had was his sharp eyes, his gun, and the bird. Which, in a way, is why his stuff is so purely, amazingly good. Here's an example of the best American bird art at the time: a little plate by Alexander Wilson (1766-1813). This is one of the plates for his nine-volume tour de force, American Ornithology, published between 1808 and 1814.

 I'm not saying Wilson's birds were bad--that female summer tanager in the lower right corner is pretty righteous--but there were some stylization issues in drawings of the time that got in the way of a true representation of the bird as it appeared in life. Some of the static poses in fashion at the time make them look  a bit more like fish than birds. Again, I grant all due respect to Alexander Wilson, who was an amazing ornithologist and artistic talent. He met Audubon in Louisville in 1810. And probably immediately felt he'd been born at the wrong time.

Because along comes this long-haired woodsman with the strange French name and the buckskin jacket, and he starts throwing down stuff like this:

 

And I'm sorry, but looking at that image, everybody else trying to paint birds out there might as well pick up their toys and go home. Because Audubon has It; he is a comet among minor stars. He's got this juvenile red-shouldered hawk blundering into a covey of bobwhite quail, and it's so dazzled by the potential of the flock that it has no idea whatsoever what it's doing, and it probably winds up crash-landing and missing them all. Its eye is wild (and exactly the right color); it's got the pale wing windows of immature hawks; it's got live crazy talons and it's striking in two directions at once. John James has watched young hawks and he knows the kind of stupid things they do, and he gets the whole "safety in numbers" thing that flocking birds exploit (If we all stick together, maybe the hawk will get YOU instead of me!) He's got those quail in every frantic, wild pose you can imagine and then some; he's bagged immatures and females and males of all ages to paint from; they're probably rotting right in front of him as he works. And he's not afraid to paint a whole flock, which, take it from me, is a royal pain in the butt, because you're trying to make sure they all come out looking like bobwhites and that you haven't thrown a rogue coturnix or ruffed grouse lookalike in there because you got bored of drawing bobwhites and lost your focus.

That apparently didn't happen to Audubon. He kept his passion through each painting.

So when I got an email from a film producer named Richard Hendrick, asking me if I’d be willing to participate in the making of a segment on Audubon for the “Picturing America” project, it took me about thirty seconds to say Hayull Yeah!

New York’s public television channel WNET Thirteen and the National Endowment for the Humanities have gotten together to choose fifty iconic paintings that they feel represent America. And they want to bring those paintings to classrooms all over the country, via laminated images, the Web and video. One of those chosen is an Audubon painting (yaaay!) They wanted me to appear in the video, giving my perspective on the image as a lifelong painter of birds. (My thanks to my pals Alan Poole and Katy Payne in Ithaca for coming up with my name when Richard asked whom they might interview!)  They’d show me the painting they chose (Audubon’s American flamingo), and I’d, uh, expound on it. Or something. I wasn’t sure. All I knew is that I’d get to see a real live hand-colored Elephant Folio of Audubon prints, and I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to do that.

Oh, but what I didn’t know I’d get to do was so much more delicious even than that. Maybe I figured it would be fabulous, no matter what. Maybe I was listening to the little voice of my late mentor, Erma (Jonnie) Fisk, whispering, "Just say YES!"  So I set out figuring out the formidable logistics of getting myself from Ohio to Boston to Providence to New York and back to Ohio, while Bill was (whoops) away in Papua New Guinea for three weeks. His parents, Bill and Elsa, were troopers, really came through for us and the kids. Thanks to them, for everything.

I traveled to New England for a college reunion, had the most marvelous, if intense, time. Then, an impromptu family reunion. Then I caught a train from Providence to New York, and my Audubon adventure began. My day started at the screech of dawn, with an hour-long videotaped interview in a small hotel room about what Audubon means to me. I was able to show Richard my favorite photo of me with my dad. Me aged 12, Dad about 58 (holy smokes, not that much older than me now!) as we perused a large sheaf of Audubon prints he’d gotten as an insurance premium. 

 photo by Dan Kemp

I loved those prints, memorized them. Dad had framed the ruffed grouse, Harris’ hawk, green-winged teal and wild turkey for our living room. I’m so thankful to have had those excellent prints to study in my formative years. I don’t remember ever copying them, but I know they, and the truth in Audubon's art, influenced my approach to drawing. Later, when I was in college, Dad gave me a volume of reproductions of original Audubon watercolors. They weren't particularly well-reproduced, but they were the best available images at the time, and there was an interesting writeup with each image. I still pore over that book, falling out of its spine as it is. I love my Dad for being the character he was--earthy and funny and wise--and for setting me up with the best art and literature he could get his hands on. 

Today, in the basement, I found my long-misplaced copies of Ernest Thompson Seton's Wild Animals I Have Known and The Thurber Carnival. Both, family heirlooms. Dad read them to my sister and me, and in reading them, made us writers. I held them in my hands, wept, and thanked my lucky stars for being blessed with the parents I had.  (Mom, as a perfect counterpoint, also kept us supplied with MAD Magazine. Which should not surprise anyone who read MAD as a kid, and also reads this blog.