17 June 2012

Pretty fine, thank you.

Palm Warbler

Totally charmed by bird painting, I just go with the flow, and keep an eye on bird painters. Etsy.com is usually one of the places I go first when browsing the Net looking for works of art. My latest (so sweet) discovery: FinchArts' nest.

« What is that draws poets to birds? And why have so many turned to them at critical points in their own writing? The collective nouns we all remember from childhood speak of language's innate fascination with all things avian: a murder of crows, a murmuration of starlings, a parliament of fowls. And it's no coincidence we afford them the most poetic collective nouns: right from the birth of literature birds have been present.

My theory is that birds provide a natural metaphor for the song all poets aspire to. We envy them their ease of expression, as their song provides a bridge into the mysteries of a world the animal in us fondly half-remembers.»

More: Why are poets so fascinated with birds?


 Eastern Phoebe

 Female Bluebird

 Blue Waxbill

 Bush Tit

 Black-Capped Chickadee

 Female Black-Throated Blue Warbler

 Blue Tit

 Bush Tit

 Chestnut-Backed Chickadee

 Chestnut-Backed Chickadee

 Chickadee

 Crested Tit

 Double Barred Finch

 Eastern Phoebe

 Long-Tailed Tit

 Palm Warbler

 Pine Warbler

 Robin

 Tiny Blue

 Tiny Sparrow

Tiny Sparrow


Finch is the arts + crafts business of Shauna Finn and James French, a crafty couple living in Jersey City, US, with their cat. Shauna is a figurative/realist painter and art instructor in Manhattan and New Jersey. James does all sorts of stuff from woodworking to painting. James is an artist and the Studio Art teacher at Elizabeth Irwin High School in the West Village.

They both teach art in Manhattan. In 2009 they opened their Etsy shop, featuring all of their bird-related arts + crafts.


Shauna's blog
web site
contact@shaunafinn.com


Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers.
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko