Neighborhood Birds (final push)

So I'm mosying along, getting work done little by little, for my upcoming show with my cousin Tripper that opens next week. We decided the title would be Neighborhood Birds, using birds as our basic motif, but loved the neighborhood element, since we both live and participate in this area of Portland called the "Alberta Arts District."
We also decided that guitars would be a running theme in the show, although most of my pieces really stuck closer to a birds and flowers idea. Oh, and since I've been part of so many peoples' weddings this summer, I've got love on the brain.
Tripper and I planned the space out, as you saw in an earlier blog entry. The gallery has a lot of counter surfaces, a few walls, (Tripper's domain) and we also got the front window to play with. I was thinking a lot about bird habitats, since summer is the best time to work in my studio and I pass through my garden when travelling from my home to my creative space out back. The bird habitats also evolved because we came up with the idea of Tripper making a big guitar for the front window--I posted a picture of it in progress a few days ago. Yesterday afternoon, I got an excited phone call saying "I just finished the guitar and it's great!" And since I was coming down the homestretch on my own work, I decided to jump on my bike to go see it.
He wasn't kidding. It's really too bad that the word "awesome" has lost most of its impact from overuse because it's the best way to describe it. I will take some better detail shots next week, but it's a magnificent example of upcycling as well. The body and neck are wood purchased at the ReBuilding Center, the strings are weed whacker cord, and the tuning pegs are clothespins. After seeing it, I realized that with that behemoth in the front window, I really needed to add one more piece to my repertoire this weekend to accompany it. Tripper offered up an old damaged guitar he happened to have sitting around, so I strapped it into my bike basket and rode home to make one last large bird for the show. I've been enjoying ReadyMade Magazine's blog chronicles this week of the redesign of a Brooklyn design trio's studio remodel, so I decided to let you in on my mad dash this weekend making a big bird out of this found object. We're installing the show on Monday, so keep your eye on this blog as I pull aside the curtain at Bunny with a Toolbelt headquarters and attempt to make a suitable sidekick for Tripper's masterpiece.