Birdie Umwelt
Part of a transit project located near a community library, this project asks the question, if birds were invited in the library, what would they find interesting?
A suite of twenty bird-and-book sculptures, accompanied by a birdhouse sculpture that mimics the postmodern architecture of the library, are scattered around the site for visitors to find.
Each book sculpture presents a page from a real book. I attempted to have a wide variety of types of books, which fell into different categories: Fiction, science, how-to, humor, children’s picture books, and arts.
Date: 2017, 2019
Location: Mustang Transit Center, Scottsdale, AZ
Commissioning Agency: Scottsdale Public Art
Project Managers: Jana Weldon, Kevin Vaughn-Brubaker, Jennifer Gill, and Tanya Galen
Materials: Bronze birds and books with marked stainless steel pages, painted aluminum birdhouse with painted steel post.
Fabricators: Bronze casting and finishing by Bollinger Atelier. Pages, assembly, and installation by E Squared Innovations.
Awards: CODAawards 2020 Public Spaces Award of Merit
Photography: Bill King and Scottsdale Public Art.
The books:
The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ukranian Easter Egg Design Book 4 by Natalie Perchyshyn
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems
The Best Nest by P. D. Eastman
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
The Book of Fables by W. S. Merwin
Why Don’t Jumbo Jets Flap Their Wings? by David Alexander
Outwitting Squirrels by Bill Adler Jr.
Cooking the Wild Southwest by Carolyn J Niethammer
Mesozoic Birds by Luis Chiappe and Lawrence Witmer
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien
In a Desert Garden: Love and Death Among the Insects by John Alcock
FAA 2018 Phoenix Visual Flight Rules Chart
Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle
Native Seeds/SEARCH 2018 Seedlisting
Noah’s Favorite Animal Jokes by Jennifer Hahn
When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne
United States War Department Signal Pigeon Company Handbook
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee