love of birds – Birds of Vermont Museum

January 2, 2025January 11, 2025

Call to Artists: Birds and Myth

Text over a sepia-toned photograph. Text reads Birds and Myth / meanings metaphors and guides / a call to artists. The background is the bristle-ends of 7 paint brushes, radiating out from the center.

Birds and Myth: meanings, metaphors, & guides

We seek to understand the world. Birds are some of our teachers, not only through our senses and observations, but also through our stories about them. These stories can be factual accounts, broader myths, or something in between. A myth might be a traditional legend, a widely-held-but-false belief, or a representation (or misrepresentation) of something true. A myth can offer insight into who we are, individually or collectively. A myth can offer us ways to behave and ideals to live by. What understanding of birds and humans have you gained through myths you have heard, told, or invented?

The Birds of Vermont Museum’s 2025 art show is centered on these ideas. We invite art submissions that bring birds and their meanings into art to retell an old story, weave several together, represent your beliefs, and/or create a myth for the future.
Continue reading “Call to Artists: Birds and Myth”

December 5, 2023

Call to Artists: Power of Perspective

The Power of Perspective: a shifting point of view

How do we focus our creative “vision”? Consider the scope of an eagle’s eye—the narrow view of a gleaning warbler—the shadowed sight of a loon underwater. We may see birds above us from the ground, or below us from a plane. We may use a camera lens to record from afar, or a magnifier and lamps to perceive what is normally unknown. How does time influence your perspective? What if we “zoom out” from one bird to a species, to an ecosystem, to a planet? What if we “zoom in” to one bird to its wing, to a feather, to a gene?

How does your art reveal a point of view?
Continue reading “Call to Artists: Power of Perspective”

July 8, 2023October 13, 2024

Spark! fueling a love of birds | 2023 community art show

The Birds of Vermont Museum has been hosting themed community art shows since 2014. Each winter, the staff develops a bird-related theme for the exhibit and posts a Call to Artists, inviting submissions in varied media. Our 2023 art show, Spark!, brings together well over 60 artists, photographers, and poets of all ages. Most artists are from Vermont. Continue reading “Spark! fueling a love of birds | 2023 community art show”

January 5, 2023January 8, 2023

Call to Artists: Spark!

Spark! fueling a love of birds

Many birders—and artists—have a “spark” moment that fueled a lifelong love of birds and birding and took them in unexpected directions. What’s your spark story? How did you start combining birds, birding, art, and science in your art? Does it show in your work? Continue reading “Call to Artists: Spark!”