Little nests watercolour 22.5 x 71cm
I have always painted nests but now I’m lucky enough to have been invited by Douglas Russell, Senior Curator of the nest and egg collections at the Natural History Museum in Tring, to collaborate on a project. We both have an interest in nests that include anthropogenic material (human rubbish) and we come from both a visual and an academic angle. These nests can be found throughout the museum’s collection of over 4000 nests, some dating back over 150 years and some very current. Each of the nests that I have studied are highly individual. They are marvels of ingenuity and opportunism. Collected from all over the world, they are often part of fascinating stories that give insight into their place in time or they can simply be mysteries. How can a wren make a nest of heavy string? Is that a bandage from the Boer war?
Sea birds’ use of plastics in nests is well documented as a sad example of today’s pollution. I am concentrating on the more plentiful terrestrial nests which are not so much in the public eye. I am looking at nests both inside the museum and in today’s environment – I was recently given one that appears to include the fluorescent fluff from a tennis ball!
Nests cannot fail to be evocative. Many people have written about the wonder and emotions felt when discovering their first nest. Helen Macdonald wrote that as a child “nests were like bruises: things I couldn’t help but touch… seasonal secrets to be used and abandoned”. And in Gaston Bachelard’s ‘Poetics of space’ he writes “A nest – and this we can understand right away – is a precious thing, and yet it sets us to daydreaming of security”. I too feel a sense of awe in front of a nest. Like looking at an icon, its humbling and other worldly – something that takes you beyond, to deeper things. I felt an all-consuming wonder when a rook’s nest fell from a lofty tree and showed me that it was more than just a random heap of sticks.
Rook’s nest, watercolour 54 x 73cm
Having spent time in the bowels of the NHM collection, I am now at the point of collecting my thoughts and ideas. I hope that my paintings, when exhibited, will be an evocative reflection on the wonders of birds as architects and opportunists and that they will be accompanied by interpretive text reflecting on their specific history and environment.
Upcoming Exhibtions
I will be exhibiting new work as a guest artist at Artworks near Bury St Edmunds this year, see details below. I was one of the founder members in 2000 and left when I became a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI). It’s great to be back.
