Carolina Parakeets

When I think of John James Audubon, I think of an itinerant naturalist/painter, roaming from one drawing opportunity to the next, perhaps carrying a big portfolio of works in progress under his arm. I think about the difficulty of curating paintings like this, what with mice and bugs and fire and rain and mildew. All my original work is either framed or lain away in darkness in secure oaken or metal flat files, groaning now with the weight of the paper within.

How can it be that ALL  470 of Audubon's original watercolors (and with gifts to the New-York Historical Society, four more) have survived intact and in more or less pristine condition to this day? At the height of the Civil War, the Society purchased by subscription all of Audubon's original work from his widow, Lucy Bakewell Audubon. And it is to Audubon, to her, and to the N-YHS we owe this incredible legacy, this gift beyond value. They all survived, and they are all in one secure place, carefully curated, each one in its own baker's box on shelves in humidity-controlled conditions.

It defies belief, but there they all are, and I was looking at one of my very favorites, if not my favorite, Audubon painting with a magnifying glass and tears starting in my eyes.

The only parrot native to the United States was a beautiful little doozy, Conuropsis carolinensis. Like almost all parrots, it flocked and chattered and squabbled, searching for fruits and seeds in the bottomland forests and croplands of a settling nation.

Audubon's words:  " The woods are the habitation best fitted for them, and there the richness of their plumage, their beautiful mode of flight, and even their screams, afford welcome intimation that our darkest forests and most sequestered swamps are not destitute of charms. "

 To an orchardist, a rainbow-colored flock of Carolina parakeets descending on a row of peach trees was a most unwelcome sight. Before the days of scare tactics--tapes of distressed birds, played at high volume--before the days of conservation--before it occurred to us that nature may not renew itself inexhaustibly--we shot them.  By 1832, Audubon  noted that they were declining.

"Our Parakeets are very rapidly diminishing in number; and in some districts, where twenty-five years ago they were plentiful, scarcely any are now to be seen. At that period, they could be procured as far up the tributary waters of the Ohio as the Great Kenhawa, the Scioto, the heads of Miami, the mouth of the Manimee at its junction with Lake Erie, on the Illinois river, and sometimes as far north-east as Lake Ontario, and along the eastern districts as far as the boundary line between Virginia and Maryland. At the present day, very few are to be found higher than Cincinnati, nor is it until you reach the mouth of the Ohio that Parakeets are met with in considerable numbers. I should think that along the Mississippi there is not now half the number that existed fifteen years ago."


We shot them, and the still-living birds would circle and try to attend to fallen flockmates, so we shot those, too, until there were no more Carolina parakeets anywhere. They made splendid decorations for hats; they were taken for pets; they were simply wasted in every way we could waste them. The last free-flying wild flock was spotted by Frank Chapman in 1904. The last wild specimen, collected in Orlando, Florida in 1913. (Before Disney World, there were ivory-billed woodpeckers in Orlando, too. Must've been a heck of a place before the "Magic Kingdom" replaced the real magic kingdom.)

  A pair, Incas and Lady Jane, survived for 32 years in an aviary at the Cincinnati Zoo, the same aviary that had housed Martha, the last passenger pigeon. Lady Jane died in 1917, and Incas followed soon after on February 18, 1918. Another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.

 But here they were, as close to alive as anyone could make them, a whole flock of what must have been Audubon's favorite bird, too, judging from the love with which he drew them. The top male had 14 tail feathers instead of the usual 12, so Audubon spread his tail and made notes about it in his journal.

He's got the chaotic psittacine flock dynamic spot-on--bickering, biting, pirating, squabbling, scratching and preening. Parrots are such fun to watch as they constantly relate to one another. The composition flows in a graceful S-curve. Audubon drew his birds directly onto the watercolor paper. I, on the other hand, draw tracing paper dummies, which I Xerox and then cut and tape into endless combinations until I'm satisfied with the composition. Sometimes I'll spend most of a day composing and recomposing a painting, and then come in the next morning and tear it all apart and do it over. when I finally have a composition I like,  I put the taped-together construction on a big lightbox and trace my drawings onto the watercolor paper. I cannot imagine creating a composition like this, of life-sized birds, while drawing each one directly onto the paper. Each one is perfect! It boggles my mind.

In the lower tier, a green-headed juvenile, just trying out its own cocklebur pod, but probably still being fed by its parents. Its wings, loosely held to its body; a psittaciphile can almost see them shaking as it begs from its nearby parent.

The lower right bird, just launching itself right at the viewer in a gorgeous head-on shot that shows the blossom-like orange face to perfection.

 With a strong light aimed for a few moments, we could see the pencil lines Audubon inscribed over the paint, creating the effect of individual feather barbules. So masterful is his handling of the feather structure and the lights and darks, that each feather seems to lift off the paper and glow with iridescence. It's hard to describe until you see it close up, and it's hard to see when your eyes are full of tears. I was afraid I'd drip on them, so I had to step back. Though I've held their skins in my hand, I know that, through Audubon's incredible hand, this original watercolor is the closest I'll ever be to a live Carolina parakeet.

My own feeble attempt at capturing an extinct bird, 2001. I include it most humbly, to illustrate my point that genius is genius, and transcends time and space.  Audubon's birds are alive! and mine are kind of silly by comparison. Like I said, Audubon's the man, forever and always.

 

Thanks to my new friend Charles Alexander for digging out the Audubon quotes.

Audubon's Red-tailed Hawks

 Watching Roberta open the big black art boxes was like Christmas morning for me. I think she enjoyed it as much as I did—to be able to show original watercolors to a watercolorist who is also an Audubon freak must be really fun. Ohhhh, the redtails. Fighting over the gory, gooey dying rabbit. Yesss.

Not something a lot of folks would want hanging on their wall, what with the guts and the pee, but oh, my! What a thrill to see it in the original art. It was huge! The redtails and rabbit are life size. Just incredible.

                 

                                                                 

Audubon rendered fur beautifully. I was fascinated with the discernable buildup of paint on the rabbit’s eye. Even more interesting was the way the white undertail coverts of the redtail were shining right through the rabbit’s face. I’m not sure what’s  going on here, but it appears that Audubon painted the redtail, then painted the rabbit right over it! You can see the lines of tail feathers on the bunny’s lower lip. I suspect that over time an ingredient in the white paint on the hawk's undertail coverts (zinc? lead?) has oxidized, allowing it to shine through the overpainted rabbit.

Commenter Hap in New Hope MN pointed out what looks like the letter A on the rabbit's mandible. What's with that? I doubt that Audubon would have signed his work with an initial in a dying rabbit's mouth. I think, rather, that it is a perhaps misdrawn tooth that has been made more obvious by the oxidizing white paint--the same bugaboo that lets the hawk's tail feather edges show through the rabbit's jaw. I dug up a photo of a cottontail skull from skullsunlimited.com.

Rabbits don't have teeth on the mandible until you get to the grinding molars. It looks to me like Audubon may have been a bit indecisive about just where the lower incisors would go. I think I see them, properly occluding the upper incisors, but they're not fully rendered.  So perhaps that's why he left the "A"  just as a pencil outline. And oxidizing paint threw it into relief. But that's just my guess. Other guesses are welcome. A little code letter for engraver Havell? Who can say?

This is a nasty fight over a big prey item. Beautifully rendered feet and talons, with foreshortening…could the lower bird have pierced the upper bird’s heel pad with its talon? Flowing blood suggests so.

Look at how Audubon merely suggested the fluffy white shank feathers of the redtail with a few pencil lines—shorthand for engraver Robert Havell, who would fill in the blanks as he saw fit. 

JJA has a male, top, and a female beneath, and he’s got the size proportions correct—female buteos are as much as 1/3 larger than males. It’s clear to me Audubon had some gorgeous, freshly killed birds to work from—the beautiful flow and lay of the wing feathers say fresh bird to me. I love the shadow of the male hawk’s right wing on his tail. But see those grayish drops on the central tail feathers? Roberta speculated that it could be tea. There is tea on several Audubon originals. They were given to the colorists who hand-colored the elephant folio plates, and while knocking about in the studio, the originals sometimes got things spilled on them. Yikes. I’d hate to be the painter who spilled tea on that translucently lovely tail.

This is one of Audubon's finest birds, I think, lovingly rendered from a freshly killed specimen. Which lives on, two hundred years later. While it's sad that it had to die, that's a high use for a redtail, to be sure.

Yellow-breasted Chats

Next, New-York Historical Society's Curator of Drawings Roberta Olson pulled out the yellow-breasted chats. Oh, how did she know how I loved that painting? It was exquisite—the depth and delicacy of the nest in particular.  Not to question the master, but I’m not sure he’s got the proportions right—the female chat seems to be buried in her nest. Chats do build a big, bulky nest but she looks quite swallowed up by this construction. Nevertheless…look at the ring of rosies around that exquisite nest. Nests are very difficult to do well. This one, aside from the proportions, is irreproachable.


Here's a photo by my patient friends Richard and Susan Day that shows chats with their nest. It's a big, deep nest, but not perhaps quite as big around or deep as Audubon showed it. 

Photo courtesy of Richard and Susan Day, Daybreak Imagery

Roberta said that this work is one of her favorites, too, for the way that Audubon tells the whole story of courtship and nesting in one painting. Of course male chats would not be displaying right over an occupied nest, but she said she thinks of it more in a comic-strip way, that Audubon is telling the story of the male’s courtship, which culminates in a nest with the male feeding his mate as she incubates their eggs. You’ll see that in another painting, coming up.

Roberta pointed out that the belly-up male chat does not appear in the final print. Audubon got a lot of flak from ornithologists of the day for his exuberant poses, which he got from the living birds, as well as from the birds he wired to his drawing board. Having lived with breeding chats around our yard for 18 years, I can attest that they do fling themselves up into the air when they start their butterfly display flight. How frustrating it must have been for Audubon to have to tone down what he knew to be right and true, in order to satisfy an audience that was both more conservative and less experienced than he.

 I had a lovely ink drawing of an American redstart, flinging itself up into the air after a leafhopper, that was rejected by the ornithologist for whose species account I drew it, because “redstarts never do that.” Oh. How odd that an ornithologist would employ the word “never” when referring to the movements of our most acrobatic and agile warbler. I’ve seen redstarts fling themselves straight up, straight down in a flurry of wings and tail, turning themselves inside out—whatever it takes to catch the insect. But however much the artist grumbles, the client is always right, so I did another drawing.

Original Audubon Watercolors

Our guide at the New-York Historical Society would be curator Roberta Olson, whose enthusiasm for and knowledge of the art of Audubon is unequaled. She's been over every print and painting with a magnifying glass, and in speaking of Audubon, brings him to glorious life.

First to come was a double elephant folio of Audubon prints, carefully opened by the curator to the flamingo page. Now these are not original watercolors, but engravings that were done from Audubon's original watercolors and hand-colored in a limited edition for collectors.  I couldn’t believe how vivid the colors were, how huge the image was. Audubon painted every bird life-size, so putting an American flamingo on even a double elephant folio sized page was a challenge. He folded and crimped the bird, and yet gave it life and motion. The back foot is lifted as if it’s in mid-step. Across the top of the page are some line drawing studies of the bill structure. And behind the bird range some other flamingos. Looking at them, it was clear to me that Audubon did not draw them. Their proportions were badly off, as were their stances--in sharp contrast to the exquisite foreground bird. Perhaps they were added by engraver Robert Havell, who, though he was terrific at what he did, was nobody's  bird artist.    (My mom used to describe certain people, the kind whose elevator doesn't go all the way to the top, as "nobody's brain.")

                                                   

I was curious about why the Picturing America project chose Audubon’s flamingo as its iconic American image. (The filmmaker wasn’t consulted about the selection). Audubon observed flamingos in the Florida Keys in 1832, and was wild to paint them. He badgered his friend Bachman (he of Bachman’s warbler fame) to send him specimens, but didn’t get his wish until 1838. What torture, to hold onto that vision for six years! He had to have the specimen shipped from Cuba, and painted it in London. From the way the primaries fold beneath the secondaries, and the way the wing stands outside the body plumage rather than tucking into it, it appears to me that he was forced to work from a dried skin, but he nevertheless imbued it with life. Compare the way the wings are almost hidden by the ornamental scapular feathers of these living birds, and how you can't see the black primaries, with the stiff, dried-looking wing on Audubon's painting. He'd certainly have gotten that right if he'd been able to see a live flamingo up close.

 Caribbean flamingos, Columbus Zoo, November 2009

 When I think of Audubon, many other images spring to mind—his lively ivory-billed woodpeckers; his Carolina parakeets in cocklebur.  His yellow-breasted chats, his wood ducks. Ah well, They’re all magnificent. The selection process may have been simple: The flamingo, though it barely and accidentally incurs into southernmost Florida every once in a blue moon, is big, impressive, and bright pink.

 Wild flamingos, Celestun, Yucatan, Mexico.

And now, curator Roberta Olson revealed what was in the tantalizing black portfolios on the tables in the viewing room. She pulled out Audubon’s original watercolor for the American flamingo. Innocent of background, the bird stood alone on the off-white paper. Audubon had painted egg white over the salmon- pink (quite a different and truer plumage color than shown in the elephant folio print), and over time that glaze had bubbled up and oxidized into brownish drips and crackles. This is one of the few originals that doesn’t look as nice as the print.

But there were more original watercolors. My heart started to race. Roberta, with flourish and an air of a magician, pulled out the house wrens next. There they were, nesting in their felt hat. Roberta showed me where Audubon had let the watercolors mingle and leave little tidelines with water to create texture on the hat. The wrens’ droppings were doubtless once bright white, but the lead in the white paint had oxidized to bluish gray. I’d always wondered about that.  At this point I was still very shy about pulling out my camera. I was almost afraid to breathe on the paintings. I couldn’t believe I was looking at the watercolor paper (Whatman, still made today) that Audubon painted on; that the heel of his hand had rested on it as he moved the brush.

John James Audubon and Me

 It’s hard to express the depth and breadth of John James Audubon’s influence on my bird paintings. Thanks to my parents, Audubon was the first painter whose work I studied, quickly followed by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. I can’t imagine a better introduction to bird painting, for each of these peerless artists turned to the living bird itself for inspiration and information. 

Here's an Audubon of northern mockingbirds attacking a rattlesnake at their nest. Audubon got criticized for having the rattler in a tree, but they do climb, and he knew that, and he stuck to his guns, creating an incredibly vibrant work of art. Just look at the bird facing down the snake's fangs. That's a mockingbird for you--fearless, full of vinegar, and (by the way) perfect in every detail.

 

 Understand that in the early 19th century, John James Audubon was painting birds much better than anybody, anywhere, anytime, had ever done. He drew and painted them so well that his images still stand head and shoulders above most of the bird paintings being done today, even with the benefit of all the insanely good reference we have. And he had no photographs to refer to. He didn't even have a pair of binoculars! All he had was his sharp eyes, his gun, and the bird. Which, in a way, is why his stuff is so purely, amazingly good. Here's an example of the best American bird art at the time: a little plate by Alexander Wilson (1766-1813). This is one of the plates for his nine-volume tour de force, American Ornithology, published between 1808 and 1814.

 I'm not saying Wilson's birds were bad--that female summer tanager in the lower right corner is pretty righteous--but there were some stylization issues in drawings of the time that got in the way of a true representation of the bird as it appeared in life. Some of the static poses in fashion at the time make them look  a bit more like fish than birds. Again, I grant all due respect to Alexander Wilson, who was an amazing ornithologist and artistic talent. He met Audubon in Louisville in 1810. And probably immediately felt he'd been born at the wrong time.

Because along comes this long-haired woodsman with the strange French name and the buckskin jacket, and he starts throwing down stuff like this:

 

And I'm sorry, but looking at that image, everybody else trying to paint birds out there might as well pick up their toys and go home. Because Audubon has It; he is a comet among minor stars. He's got this juvenile red-shouldered hawk blundering into a covey of bobwhite quail, and it's so dazzled by the potential of the flock that it has no idea whatsoever what it's doing, and it probably winds up crash-landing and missing them all. Its eye is wild (and exactly the right color); it's got the pale wing windows of immature hawks; it's got live crazy talons and it's striking in two directions at once. John James has watched young hawks and he knows the kind of stupid things they do, and he gets the whole "safety in numbers" thing that flocking birds exploit (If we all stick together, maybe the hawk will get YOU instead of me!) He's got those quail in every frantic, wild pose you can imagine and then some; he's bagged immatures and females and males of all ages to paint from; they're probably rotting right in front of him as he works. And he's not afraid to paint a whole flock, which, take it from me, is a royal pain in the butt, because you're trying to make sure they all come out looking like bobwhites and that you haven't thrown a rogue coturnix or ruffed grouse lookalike in there because you got bored of drawing bobwhites and lost your focus.

That apparently didn't happen to Audubon. He kept his passion through each painting.

So when I got an email from a film producer named Richard Hendrick, asking me if I’d be willing to participate in the making of a segment on Audubon for the “Picturing America” project, it took me about thirty seconds to say Hayull Yeah!

New York’s public television channel WNET Thirteen and the National Endowment for the Humanities have gotten together to choose fifty iconic paintings that they feel represent America. And they want to bring those paintings to classrooms all over the country, via laminated images, the Web and video. One of those chosen is an Audubon painting (yaaay!) They wanted me to appear in the video, giving my perspective on the image as a lifelong painter of birds. (My thanks to my pals Alan Poole and Katy Payne in Ithaca for coming up with my name when Richard asked whom they might interview!)  They’d show me the painting they chose (Audubon’s American flamingo), and I’d, uh, expound on it. Or something. I wasn’t sure. All I knew is that I’d get to see a real live hand-colored Elephant Folio of Audubon prints, and I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to do that.

Oh, but what I didn’t know I’d get to do was so much more delicious even than that. Maybe I figured it would be fabulous, no matter what. Maybe I was listening to the little voice of my late mentor, Erma (Jonnie) Fisk, whispering, "Just say YES!"  So I set out figuring out the formidable logistics of getting myself from Ohio to Boston to Providence to New York and back to Ohio, while Bill was (whoops) away in Papua New Guinea for three weeks. His parents, Bill and Elsa, were troopers, really came through for us and the kids. Thanks to them, for everything.

I traveled to New England for a college reunion, had the most marvelous, if intense, time. Then, an impromptu family reunion. Then I caught a train from Providence to New York, and my Audubon adventure began. My day started at the screech of dawn, with an hour-long videotaped interview in a small hotel room about what Audubon means to me. I was able to show Richard my favorite photo of me with my dad. Me aged 12, Dad about 58 (holy smokes, not that much older than me now!) as we perused a large sheaf of Audubon prints he’d gotten as an insurance premium. 

 photo by Dan Kemp

I loved those prints, memorized them. Dad had framed the ruffed grouse, Harris’ hawk, green-winged teal and wild turkey for our living room. I’m so thankful to have had those excellent prints to study in my formative years. I don’t remember ever copying them, but I know they, and the truth in Audubon's art, influenced my approach to drawing. Later, when I was in college, Dad gave me a volume of reproductions of original Audubon watercolors. They weren't particularly well-reproduced, but they were the best available images at the time, and there was an interesting writeup with each image. I still pore over that book, falling out of its spine as it is. I love my Dad for being the character he was--earthy and funny and wise--and for setting me up with the best art and literature he could get his hands on. 

Today, in the basement, I found my long-misplaced copies of Ernest Thompson Seton's Wild Animals I Have Known and The Thurber Carnival. Both, family heirlooms. Dad read them to my sister and me, and in reading them, made us writers. I held them in my hands, wept, and thanked my lucky stars for being blessed with the parents I had.  (Mom, as a perfect counterpoint, also kept us supplied with MAD Magazine. Which should not surprise anyone who read MAD as a kid, and also reads this blog.