Mother Bird 2013

On my bike rides, in the spring and summer, I often see mother quail with their babies.  When they see me coming, the babies line up behind their mother as she ducks and weaves, trying to evade me--the fast moving giant with the round, rolling  legs.  The chick's tiny legs work like pistons as they move in single file behind the panicked mother.

My mother quail is a conglomerate of pieces that speak to the fact that she is simultaneously urban and wild:  her head is constructed from graffitied text, her body from soil littered with seeds and sticks.  The babies bodies are made from bits and pieces of the brush they hide in.  All of them, mother included, have human eyes.