FAUNA: An Art Show

While I was working on FAUNA, the art show Margaret Gallagher envisioned, celebrating our urban wildlife, I had some strange encounters with animals.

"The witch didn't feed the little children she kept in the oven, 
but she fed the wild animals that came to her door." 
 (painting, centerfold of zine)

One was in a dream:  a ladder led up to a loft where a badger lived, but as I climbed up, I saw a shadow slinking back and forth, a panther, sleek and stealthy against the blue black night. I can't remember much else about the dream, but the sense of the big cat's movement and the color of the sky were visceral and stayed with me for the rest of the day.

One night as I worked in my garage/studio, a raccoon walked by. When he saw me, he growled fiercely, arching his back and then tiptoed away. It was just like I had drawn earlier in the day, a skunk on its tiptoes. I thought I was making stuff up; I'd never seen an animal on tiptoes before.

In my zine I tell the story of the wild animals next door. As I was working on it, I'd look out my kitchen window and there they'd be: the skunks eating out of the cat bowls. The coyote waiting to be fed. The crows, the stray cats, the raccoons. My neighbor whispering sweet nothings to them all. Life and art separated by a window screen. 

We had a wonderful time at our opening for FAUNA, with friends coming out to Perhspace, with enthusiasm and support. Margaret and I appreciated the warmth that filled the room. Until the show was hung that morning, I had no idea if it would work. I think we were both a little surprised when it did, the different styles complimenting each other and making a bigger whole. Here are a few pix from the show (photos by Tom Harjo):

Opening night

 (click on photos to enlarge)

My other neighbors who don't feed wild animals, and Greg

Wheat paste crow and skunks

(notice the tiptoes)

 
Coyote print with chine-colle, with Craig and Aaron

Margaret's sleeping coyote
(photo by Margaret Gallagher) 

FAUNA will be up until October, although by appointment only. If you're interested in coming by or know anyone who is, please get in touch with me by leaving a comment here, or email, lottobrand127@gmail.com, or fb: https://www.facebook.com/charlotte.hildebrand.14. I will arrange to meet whoever would like to see the show.

Art work is for sale, with 40% of the proceeds benefiting the California Wildlife Center. My zine is for sale as well...oh look, there it is below! Let me know if you'd like to buy one.

(silkscreen crow on butcher paper, cover)

A Tale About...

Once, there was a Crow...

and Crow would caw whenever it sensed danger...


CAW, CAW,


One day, it looked down from its perch, and saw a....

Coyote...

 and Crow cawed and cawed.

Coyote's appearance meant that food was coming, and so, other animals were on their way too.

Skunks. CAW CAW


and raccoons and possums. CAW CAW CAW


But mainly, 

Coyote. CAW CAW CAW CAW CAW


Crow looked down from its perch and saw, too, the old witch who fed the Coyote. She lived in a green house, with a green hedge and a green car, and whose complexion was a little green. 

She didn't feed the little children she kept in the oven, but she fed the wild animals that came to her door. She loved the animals more than the little children, and more than her neighbor, who had asked her not to feed the wild animals. 


At one time—about a week ago—the witch had told her neighbor that she wanted to have a good sense of community; the neighbor hadn't realized that what she meant was a community of wild things.


The witch whispered sweet nothings to the Coyote, as Coyote waited for its meal. She told the Coyote to be a good boy, Werden ein guter Junge; then cautiously she approached, while Coyote looked up at the bowl she held in both hands. 

They understood each other; one was wild, and the other, lonely, or crazy, or both.

The neighbor stayed hidden behind the hedges, because she didn't want the Coyote to bark at her; also, she didn't want to be turned into jello by the witch. She knew that witches can do stuff like that— turn bones into halva, or turn coyotes into humans.

End of story?  To be continued...CAW CAW

In Shifts

(follow up to post on 6/3)

  

I don't know why I'm afraid to talk to my neighbor Thea about the commotion next door; perhaps because I talked to her last year about feeding the feral cats and skunks and raccoons and nothing came of it. My fear comes, too, from the fact that an old woman can be sharp edged as a knife, dangerous as a steel trap and unyielding to the point of chicanery. 

Don't get me wrong; my neighbor is a wonderful woman, but the busy schedule of the comings and goings of various animals has gotten out of hand. Something has to be done:

7 a.m.: Breakfast, Coyote, table set for one
7:30-8 a.m.: breakfast, seven skunks
noon-3: brunch, six rowdy crows
5 p.m.: supper again for the coyote, although in this part of the country I think you call it dinner.
5:30 p.m.-until dark: skunks in shifts, the occasional possum and raccoon

The point of my argument (to make her stop setting out food) must be in the interest of the wildlife she's feeding. I'll say in a soft spoken manner, "Thea, you're not helping the animals; you're making them dependent on the food you give them. What will happen when you're not here?"

Who will get to the bowl first?

Why would I not be here? she'll ask.

Pause, What then? Am I to say, at your age your headed for the big ballpark in the sky; anything could happen. But I can't say that; it would be too cruel.

Well, what if you get sick, I'll say. What will the animals do?  The coyote might become aggressive and attack some unsuspecting child or small pet; maybe jump over the fence and bite me for interfering with its supper. 

She'll shake her head like last time and say she doesn't agree with my assessment.

I'll say, Okay, you win; let the skunks fill up the afternoon air with stink, let the coyote become a stalker, let the crows caw to their hearts content. I give up, I give up. 

And she'll say, you see, what a lovely talk we've had. I'm glad we understand each other.






But it didn't go like that. When I called her at noon to talk about the problem, she was all good graces; she said she had wondered herself if she was doing the right thing. As a child during the war, she lived on the edge of a forest, and it was only natural to feed the animals during winter. I gently reminded her, an abundant harvest is always available in sunny CA; there's enough little voles and moles to fill up Dodger Stadium. She said so herself: "I have to remember this isn't Germany." So, she agreed to stop. If she couldn't feed one, she wouldn't feed any. She promised, no more food. 

But I feel a little guilty that she won't have the animals to feed. She's lonely up here on Mt. Washington since her husband died five years ago; her daughter lives in Pennsylvania and comes out only a few times a year. It must give her pleasure to take care of so many small creatures. I wonder if I've done more harm than good. 

Neighbor Thea with her daughter Karen, who lives back East.

Will I be like Thea in my old age, leathery and lonely? Will I do anything—no matter how misguided—to feel so needed?


P.S. Woke up this morning and noticed three bowls in her yard, and a possum lurking about. What the...??

She rides the lion—at least it's not a car

As I was trudging up the hill to my house today, I had the illogical expectation that someone would pass by and give me a ride, the same expectation I used to have as a kid of five, hoping someone in a big limousine would drive by and adopt me. It's similar to the childlike and illogical expectation I have now hoping that someone—Obama? Tony what's his name? Steven Chu?— will make the oil spill go away and the environment, the sea turtles, the birds, the marshes, be okay again.

Meanwhile, I still keep driving. But today, I walked. I headed down to Highland Park—the northeast community below Mt. Washington—because my husband's going out of town for a week with the camera and I needed to load up on pictures. I hadn't expected to walk so far—my goal was the art gallery down by the railroad tracks.

But after I got there I kept on walking and ran into a guy at the burger stand on Figueroa. His name was David, the same as my brother.

 

 David from the San Fernando Valley in Highland Park, looking for trouble?

David my brother in India, looking for Nirvana?

 (photo credit: unknown)

This David, from the Valley, was on a job; when I told him I'd put his picture on my blog, he asked, "What's that?"  He'd never heard of "blogs" or done email, and didn't know how to get around a computer. When I told him he could get a Pell grant to study computers, like at the school where I teach for instance, he scoffed; he'd learn the computer on his own, little by little, he said. It dawned on me that Highland Park, although only a few blocks from home, is another hood altogether—one where I'd be prudent to keep my illogical expectations to myself.

By the time I'd finished walking I was almost two miles out—the way back, mostly up hill. Now where's that ride? 

Some shots of Highland Park, day and night:

Ruby at Society of the Spectacle on York Ave.

The Shop at Ave. 50th and Fig

Hand display at Time Nails

Torres Barber Shop

El Takitaco parked near Food-4-Less on Fig.

(More photos are on my fb page under "Highland Park" Album)

~~~

Lately, I've been admiring those stalwart National Geographic Society photographers; you know the ones, the men and women who sit in wait for hours, days, weeks, for certain animals to show up. That's how it's been in our back yard for the past week, waiting for the baby coyotes to appear. I was beginning to think I'd hallucinated seeing two of them, and then I saw one crossing below our house at sunset: he hurried along the path, and then out of nowhere, another baby coyote came to greet him, just like that! They leapt at each other with their over-sized baby mitten paws and quickly disappeared together under the brush. Needless to say, I didn't get a picture.

Soon after, I heard a rustling in the bushes from the same direction where the first coyote had emerged...

A big fat skunk came waddling by, right under my nose, timing its sojourn just right. Fatso was on its way to Thea's, my next door neighbor, to chow down on the cat food she leaves out for the neighborhood strays (which—is it just my imagination?—have been diminishing in number). I hope the baby coyotes don't get wind of that food. Like all wild things, they'll need to stay clear of humans if they're going to survive.