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Raven Bowl

There’s a show coming up at Risk Press Gallery in Sebastopol, called “Signs of Passage.” It’s about animal tracks, tracking, and the language of birds. Sandy Eastoak and I have been collaborating in preparation for a show at Sebastopol Gallery next year, and the Risk Press show’s theme got both our tails wagging. This elm bowl grew out of thinking about ravens in flight, and while it migrated quite a way from the original concept I’m very happy with where it finally landed. Ravens are birds worthy of respect and attention. They’re intelligent, playful and seem to have a sense of humor. They fly like they really enjoy it. They’ve been revered as gods, shot as pests, and studied as one of the few other intelligent species to share our planet. They’re gifted mimics, terrible thieves and opportunists, and altogether delightful. The show, Signs of Passage,” runs from November 9-29th, 2013, and Risk Press Gallery is located at 7345 Healdsburg Avenue (also known as Highway 116) in Sebastopol, CA.

There are 9 ravens circling the bowl, all different, all in flight. The elm was challenging to burn, since the grain lines are quite distinct and the wood is extremely hard.

Another view, with the bowl rotated almost halfway round to the right.

Since the show for which this piece was produced was called “Signs of Passage” the original concept was to have a trail of raven footprints across the inside of the bowl. When I started researching them, I found that ravens have enormous feet, with the prints often up to 3″ long. While I may yet do a piece with the footprints at life size, they didn’t feel quite right for this piece, so I opted for another sign of passage, the discarded feather. As if on cue, a neighborhood crow obligingly left me a feather (close enough in shape to the raven feathers I’ve gotten to look at) to study.

I’ve learned that taking a detail picture of something inside a curved and slightly reflective object is very difficult. My apologies for the funky shadows.

A slightly closer view of 2 of the ravens. Each image was outlined with a detailing tip, the same one that I use for signing the bottoms of my bowls, and then filled in with a spoon shader, which is a wide, curved flat tip. This project has convinced me to do more with pyrography. I’ve got some ideas about a natural-edge bowl with either dolphins or otters “under the surface.”