Each morning at Sky Garden STX, I step out onto the deck of my studio and let the sounds of the island caress me. The pearly-eyed thrashers call first—raspy, relentless, full of attitude. They dart through the trees like mischief in motion. Then the doves join in, their coos low and mournful, like lullabies passed down from long ago.
I listen.
Their chorus is not just background noise. It’s an invocation. The rhythm of wings, the hush between calls, the way the birds stake hold of space with sound. It’s music. It’s memory.
The birds are teaching me to pause, to trust the silences between gestures. To let motion emerge from stillness.
I’ve started wondering: What does it look like to be guided by birds? Not as subject matter, but in process, in tempo, in spirit? I’m not sure yet. But recently I came across a flipbook machine by J.C. Fontanive, the way it cycles through images of birds in flight—over and over, rhythmic, hypnotic, alive—it mirrors what I feel on the deck each morning: movement as meditation. Repetition as revelation.
I don’t know exactly where this is going. But I do know that before I pick up any materials, I always listen first. To the wind. To the wings. To the wild logic of song.
Let’s see what unfolds.
J.C. Fontanive
Ornithology L, 2018
four-color screen print on Bristol paper, stainless steel, motor and electronics
5.25 x 4.25 x 4 inches