a small defiance... | art & connection
Every time I see a towhee, I think about connections.
The intersecting lines that happen with connections.
So, a while back...well, actually, let’s start last year, out in the garden.
In July 2025, I was participating as a vendor at the Nanoose Bay Art in the Garden, when J came into my booth, admired my work, and asked if I had a towhee. No, I did not. I usually go after the showier birds...rarely the songbirds, sparrows, or “yardbirds,” a.k.a. LBBs...Little Brown Birds.
I told her I’d see what I could do.
And then I started looking for towhees.
They are flighty little bugger nuts. It started to seem like they were now avoiding me...now that I actually needed them. And more often than not, the little bugger nuts would fly out of the frame, leaving me with not even so much as a blur.
And then I’d be flipping it the bird. Yeah, I know. But it made me feel better.
Anyway….
In April this year, a friend was visiting and the Englishman River Estuary was one of the places we went to do our usual stalking of whatever birds we could find.
And there it was...a magnificent little towhee.
I stalked. I flirted.
And...I got a couple of shots I was sure I could work with.
And then the magic.
Creating the piece was a bit of a challenge. I had to find the right rhythm…the right feeling… for this kind of bird, but I think I managed it very well. I gave it a name I thought was very fitting...a small defiance...
I posted it on Instagram, hoping that the woman from the year before might see it.
It took J a couple of weeks, but she did, and the first thing she asked was, “Is it for sale?”
We went back and forth through email, and eventually arranged for J to come to my house to see the piece and possibly buy it. I wasn’t sure she would.
Now, the day after we made those arrangements, I got a phone call from M, one of J’s work colleagues and friends, asking how much the piece was. They had thought they would pool their money and buy it for J as a surprise.
Dammit!
This was going to complicate matters.
I gave M the price and then I started doing the mathing in my head. This wasn’t exactly the kind of price tag you’d normally be pooling money for as an office gift, and I wasn’t sure how many people would need to chip in to make it work. J was still coming to see the piece, though, so they only had a couple of days to figure it out.
The next day, I got a text from M saying they might give J cash towards buying it instead.
I replied, “That sounds like a great plan! You’re lovely people.” And I meant it.
So J came to my house to look at a small defiance...
She loved it. Of course, lol.
I took the piece off the wall and handed it to her so she could really look at it. And that’s when she told me the story of why she loves towhees.
J had a private gardening job, and while she was working around the compost and raking things up, a towhee would follow her around, looking for the fresh grubs and whatever else she was uncovering. Over time, she noticed that it followed her, and she started talking to it and interacting with it in any way she could.
They became friends...not Cinderella-type friends, but the kind of friends a human can become with a wild thing. But then one day, J found the little towhee dead. It had been killed by an electric rat trap.
It devastated her.
So, in memory of that connection, it was important to her to have an image of the towhee in her home.
And then she told me about her work colleagues...really, they’re friends...and her family coming together to give her birthday money towards the purchase. She had already been determined to buy the piece no matter what, but having these special people help her made it even more meaningful.
And there it was...all these lines connecting.
J asking for a towhee in July 2025.
Me looking for one.
My friend visiting.
The towhee at the estuary.
The stalking and flirting and getting the shots.
Creating the piece.
Finding its name.
Posting it on Instagram.
J seeing it.
M and the other women trying to figure out how to buy it for her.
Her family and friends giving her birthday money.
All these lines connecting is pretty astounding.
J literally walked out of my house hugging the picture, and as I watched her go, I thought, “This is why I love the art I create”.
It’s not just about, “Oh, it’s a pretty picture.” It’s about what I see and feel, and what I’m able to present in my imagery that takes someone to their own special place. A feeling of calm, a feeling of remembrance, a feeling of happiness, joy, grief, or whatever emotion the piece evokes.
Because once the work leaves me, I don’t get to decide what it means anymore.
That’s the really interesting part.
I might see a towhee. Someone else might see a friend they lost.
I might see a moment in nature. Someone else might see a memory.
And somewhere in between the two, all those intersecting lines of connection happen.
That’s the magic.
And this, dear friends, is what happens when you don't think things through. iPhones being propped with a stick = doggy thinking, "Ooooh, STICK!"
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