In the summer of 2022, I listened to a podcast about an artist who led community-involved art pieces. I was inspired to create a community art project of my own. I invited several of my friends to Alamo Square Park to draw with me. My friends sketched images onto feather-shaped paper, using only black ink. I spent the next few months going around to various groups of friends within the Bay Area to continue collecting drawings. Once I collected all the feathers, I stitched each one together over metal wire to create a bird wing, and lined the bottom of the wing with large brown and beige feathers. On the back of each feather, my friends wrote their gratitudes, shown in the video.
I spent a wonderful seven years in the Bay Area and am so incredibly grateful for the community I built there. This art piece will forever represent the home that I created in the Bay, and the people who made my time there so very special.
P.S. I created a much longer video, an “artist’s video” so to speak, talking about the project, the inspiration, the process, etc. I wanted to create one of those videos you see at musuems, circa early 2000s, of an artist very seriously talking about their work, with fade transitions and cheesy classical music. It turned out much more serious than I intended so I am not showcasing it here. If you’re curious you can check it out at this link.