Several years ago I went to an estate sale and it turned out to be the house of an artist, an artist who did mixed media and assemblage art. I bought a box of rusted flattened bottle caps. I remember the look on the cashier’s face at that sale- like, who tht heck has a ox of rusted flattened bottlecaps and even more importantly how is someone buying it? Anyway, I get excited every time I find a place for one of those flattened rusted bottle caps in my work.
Adding the two rusted circles to the top were the final touches, echoing the round and round of the weaving of the nest.
When we lived in Chicago a robin picked the window above our front door to build a nest. Not great for our front door, but really neat to see the bird build the nest from scratch. Incredible actually. The weaving in and out of the various twigs and fibers with just its beak. I once made my own nest using raffia that we used to hold our wedding bands for our ring bearer instead of the traditional pillow. It wasn’t that easy and I had two hands and ten fingers, not just a beak.
I watched that robin and her devotion to creating the nest for her young has always stayed with me.