Light Fuse and Fly Away: Crows Playing With Fire June/July Show at Redux

Brent and I have pretty much constantly been in the studio for our latest show. As you can see from just this one piece, it has a LOT of detail in it, and took forever. But so worth it. When you can step back and look at something in wonder, and say to yourself, wow, I made that. Our style is really meshing together. One thing you may or may not know about me is that I hate HATE painting. All of this began with a year long oil painting class in college. I don’t need to elaborate. Don’t get me wrong, about 98% of the paint is Brent. The lines are blurring, as he told me last night as we were hanging the show (we did our finishing bits at our separate houses) that he picked up a pen. Anyway, I hope you can come see the show. It’s our best work yet, and while we are exhausted, we have ideas for new pieces and of course a few pieces to finish.

LIGHT FUSE AND FLY AWAY: CROWS PLAYING WITH FIRE

It has been long rumoured that there is a tradition among certain crows that has caused much fascination and folklore. Rarely observed by people (and then usually from a great distance), these corvids seem to have a highly unusual summer tradition involving man-made pyrotechnics. It is thought that this phenomenon had its start when a semi truck jacknifed, and spilled its contents of  kitchen safety matches all over a rural highway in the early 1970’s. From then on, reports of explosions and bright, colorful flashes came from the woods and nearby grasslands; always around mid to late summer. On some occasions, the volunteer fire department had to be called to extinguish suspicious brush fires that were started far from any roads or dwellings, but seemed to have been caused by the careless use of fireworks. 

Corvid experts speculate the timing of these events coincide with the end of nesting/fledging season, and had evolved into some sort avian celebration of the end of the stressful annual task of raising and teaching their young. Truth is, no one really knows exept that every year the mysterious events continue and still do to this day; seemingly passed down from one generation of crows to the next. This may seem far-fetched, but those who have spent any time around these clever birds know that although highly improbable, is entirely possible.

Redux 811 E. Burnside Street Ste 116, Portland, Oregon

Opening: 2 June 2017 6p – 9p (a little later if people keep coming)

Regular hours: Monday-Saturday 11-7 Sunday 11-5

Show runs through 31 July 2017

reduxpdx.com

Not in Portland? Redux will ship paintings. We will be posting them on our instagram. And as always we will be posting new work and prints in our Etsy shop.