Crabtree Creek from greenway deck just west of Capital Boulevard
Art is gaining ground here on Raleigh Nature, as perhaps it well should. Last summer, I posted about art shows related to Raleigh nature, and now I’m really enjoying participating in a piece of correspondence art, or at least communication art, by Julie Thomson, an artist and a scholar I met at the Black Mountain College conference last October. Still haven’t written about that event over at Raleigh Rambles, but I had to share this wonderful project.
Julie’s installation consists of a poster about her piece inviting people to chalk “Do You Hear Birds?” in places they heard them, with a large pile of beautifully printed and wrapped chalks for people to pick up. Her blog documents responses. The piece is part of a show called “Local Histories.” Saturday, March 5, Julie is conducting a bird walk in association with her installation.
Edna Metz Wells Park, an excellent central raleigh birding spot
Julie Thomson’s project blog: http://www.doyouhearbirds.blogspot.com/
Her upcoming bird walk:
Saturday, March 5 at 8 am
Do You Hear Birds Bird Walk
Artist Julie Thomson and Biology graduate students from North Carolina
State University will lead a walk around Chapel Hill listening for,
and identifying, bird calls. Participants are encouraged to bring
binoculars if they have them for bird watching. Dress for the weather
and meet in front of the Local Histories exhibition building entrance,
523 E. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill.
Closer to home, Lee Moore’s show about birds opens Friday, March 4 at the Museum of Natural Sciences Nature Art Gallery. Lee is a dear friend, a Bain artist who got me involved in that project, and a wonderful artist whose bird art was shown in the last couple of years at the Cameron Village Library. She’s also the person who first informed me of the presence of coyotes inside Raleigh – Boylan Heights, specifically.
Lee Moore’s show:
“Attracting Birds: Sounds and Skies,” is part of an ongoing series that
partners bibliographic inspirations with the artist’s expressions of
personal bird encounters in collage paintings, photography and recordings.
This most recent rendition is a collection of visual poems about the bird
encounters in residential landscapes of two historic neighborhoods in
Raleigh and Durham. Also included are soundscapes, skyscapes and
treescapes that create an environment for Attracting Birds.
Lee’s show blog: http://www.leeattractingbirds.blogspot.com
As if these shows weren’t enough synergistic art for Triangle birds, Adam Peele has a show entitled Raleigh Is For The Birds at Design Box.
I also have to add this lovely image from an older bird show – Susan Toplikar’s show in 2008, based on notebooks of bird sketches she created while medically homebound. Birds have a presence that enters our lives: we take them for granted and yet we do observe and react to them, and they frame the audial background of our day in ways we hardly realize. Do you hear birds?
Edna Metz is a wonderful urban amenity tucked into Cameron park just below Cameron Village shopping center. It boasts unusual and large short-leaf pines, my record tulip tree inside the beltline, and a mountain-like atmosphere right after a rain, as the two small creeks climb down rocks before joining and starting down Johnson Street toward Pigeon House Creek downtown. Tiny but complex, its steep hillside is dotted with escaped daffodils in the spring, and the dense tree cover and intertwining creeks make each area seem separate and private.
raleighnaturalist
The Raleigh Naturalist 
