Mass Audubon's Visual Arts Center

 Believe it or don't, I was in Massachusetts to do other things than photograph gravestones and owls and twigs. I'd been invited by the Mass Audubon Visual Arts Center in Canton to come give a talk in honor of their retrospective of Robert Verity Clem's stunning art, now on display. Bob was a mentor to me; he steered me toward working from living birds (and those freshly dead, too). He showed me how the feathers lay and stack on their wings and taught me how to get it right. He even sent me a stack of watercolor paper when he found me working on junk.

So I spoke of that, and of what happened after that, of a life led among birds, taking care of them and helping them when I can.

And a whole bunch of my friends showed up.

 from left, back, VAC Curator Gigi Hopkins; field sketch artist and author Clare Walker Leslie; painter and museum exhibit creator Sean Murtha; hopeful collegian and linguist Emily Barth; former Mass Audubon Director of Natural History Services Jim Baird; artist, carver and writer Rob Braunfield.
  Front row, from left: Sculptor, carver, and painter Larry Barth; painter and field sketcher Barry Van Dusen; painter and newly minted Master Wildlife Artist Jim Coe; pastel painter Cindy House; painter and explorer Lucia de Leiris; and a very wide-angled and agog JZ.  Darn it, VAC Director Amy Montague shoulda been in this picture but she was taking it!

You would not want to drop a bomb on this room. The world of birds in art would never be the same.

I'm still amazed at the gathering that took place, and deeply grateful to Amy Montague and Cindy House for corralling a flighty aviary of artists into one place for such a joyful reunion. Most brought things to show and tell. It's so inspiring to see the beautiful work my friends are doing, and to be able to talk with them about it. These people are going out and painting in oils and watercolors and pastels en plein air; they're sketching birds and animals from life; they're living proof of the legacy Bob Clem left.

Amy took us downstairs to poke through some early work by Bob Clem. What a treat that was, to view his working drawings and early paintings close up!

A moody northern shrike watercolor.

As we gasped and exclaimed, we joked about which piece we'd like to slip under our jackets and walk home with...this page of falcon drawings was at the top of my heap.

The immediate recognition I felt upon viewing this fine, fine sharpshin was akin to looking out the window and seeing one fetched up in the birch, watching the feeders. Bob's work is so true to the bird that not for a second do you have to wonder if it's a sharpie or a Cooper's. Every stroke of the brush says sharpie. He knew his birds so very, very well. If you go see the show, don't miss the life studies of a perched Cooper's hawk in the stairwell. Another slip-under-the-jacket painting for me. 

The VAC show is awesome, and well worth a trip down to see this master artist's rarely-reproduced work firsthand. I'm a watercolorist and despite heavy-duty staring there were passages in his paintings I couldn't figure out; sunlight hitting off algae mats and that kind of thing. He had a patience and an ability to plan his paintings that I lack. Most of all, they're true, to light, to landscape, to bird, and I'm deeply grateful to Bob for imparting that all-important search for truth to me when I was a baby bird painter.

Read Connecticut painter Sean Murtha's blogpost about Bob Clem, and how he felt seeing this show, here.

I gave a talk at 2 on Saturday November 12, and another at 11 on Sunday the 13th. We had great attendance for both. There were so many people I knew in the room on Saturday that it truly felt like an episode of "This is Your Life." The combined expertise in art and ornithology in that room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I was nervous as a kingfisher right up until I grabbed the podium and launched, and then it went just fine. 

It sure helped to have family there.

And the dearest of friends. This is Rob Braunfield, who taught me everything about bluebirds and the art of seeing, too.

Boston Area Zick Alert!

This is a Zickefoose. Definitely not a Clem.  Here's Bob in his favorite spot, probably heading over to (or from) Monomoy Island on the elbow of Cape Cod. He was a shorebird himself. Or maybe a corvid. I miss him dearly.

There's a fabulous exhibit of the original art of Robert Verity Clem up right now at Massachusetts Audubon's Visual Arts Center in Canton.  Bob painted birds, true, but he painted them in context, as you'd see them, in all the right places and in all the most stunning light regimes. The last time I was in his studio, and it was long ago, he was painting corvids against the light. Crows and ravens, more crows and ravens, and each painting made me take my breath in. They were places you could be, slants of light you knew, and then there were the birds, doing things and flashing wings.

As part of the observances, I've been asked to give a couple of presentations at the VAC. Bob was a very important person in my development as a bird painter, giving guidance to my process and product in the 1980's and '90's. Of course I stared holes in the only widely published examples of his work, in Peter Mattheissen's Shorebirds of North America. But it was his hands-on critique of my stuff that really made an impression. He showed me how to go to the living bird to paint what is true. I'm so thankful to have fallen under his influence. It changed the course of my life.

Though I feel wholly unworthy of being called a protege of Bob's, I leapt at the chance to come to Massachusetts in November, and agreed to speak a bit about that influence and the arc of my work. I'll spend this week working on the illustrated talks, and I can't wait!

Here's the scoop:

The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds

Saturday, Nov 12, 2pm

Julie Zickefoose, artist and writer, was mentored by Bob Clem in the 1980s. She will talk about how that experience shaped her life with birds: studying, painting, healing them when they’re broken, and mothering them when they’re orphaned.

Painting Birds with Julie Zickefoose

Sunday, Nov 13, 11am

Have you ever wondered how an artist goes about gathering inspiration and reference for a painting? How a painting is done, from the first sketches to the final wash? How an artist manages to make a living drawing and painting natural history subjects? Widely-published artist Julie Zickefoose opens her sketchbooks, studio, and gallery for

a walk-through in this slide talk.

 To register for these programs, call the Mass Audubon Visual Arts Center,  at 781-821-8853  It's at 963 Washington Street, Canton, MA 02021. 

  Here's a link to its programs page for more information.

I am TOTALLY excited about this trip. All fluttery. How often do I get over to the East Coast? Like, nevah. God willing and the river don't rise and it don't snow two feet and the power stays on, there will be an aviary of terrific modern bird artists present at  these talks, any one of whom can paint rings around me. The discussion ought to be lively and fun. These are my best buddies.  So  give them a call and come on down, and tell the nice people at the VAC that I sent you. And don't forget to blurt "BLOG!" when we meet!