A highly theatrical display
Bower
A recent commission: to create the artwork for Genevieve Lacey’s Bower, released as an album by ABC Classic on Friday the 14th of May, 2021
Genevieve Lacey: recorders
Marshall McGuire: harps
Martel Ollerenshaw: producer
Jim Atkin: sound engineer
Lou Bennett, Andrea Keller, Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, John Rodgers, Lachlan Skipworth, Bree van Reyk, Erkki Veltheim: composers
Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison: art
Jennifer Ackerman: words
Angus Kemp: film
Niklas Pajanti: light
“The selection of adornments has been many and varied. Tiny pink cutlery, little purple plates, a green sugar bowl and a miniature purple teapot took pride of place at the bower entrance.”
A beautiful feathered invitation arrived last year, to weave a bower from collage for Genevieve Lacey’s Bower. This dream commission, as you’ll often find us chiming, has been a sheer delight, making visual a fluttering of notes and creating a haven piece by petal.
Bower was recently released as an album by ABC Classic, and will tour nationally for Musica Viva from the 10th to 26th of July, 2021. The album, is, as best described by Genevieve, “an associative, ephemeral nest, woven with memories, heart, [and] hope. Musical treasures found, borrowed and made lovingly fashioned into a sanctuary”, and we heartily encourage you to purchase or stream Bower through ABC Classic.
Alongside the cover, we created several Bowerbird collages which you can see here, all of which feature in the CD booklet. The digital collages include bowerbirds from Elizabeth Gould’s hand coloured key plates from The Birds of Australia (1840–1848), in the collection of the State Library of NSW, and illustrated botanical works by Ferdinandi Bauer from Illustrationes florae Novae Hollandiae (1813), and James Sowerby’s engravings within the Specimen of the botany of New Holland (1793), both in the collection of State Library Victoria.
“Satin Bowerbirds are medium-sized birds. The adult male has striking glossy blue-black plumage, a pale bluish white bill and a violet-blue iris. Younger males and females are similar in colour to each other, and are collectively referred to as ‘green’ birds. They are olive-green above, off-white with dark scalloping below and have brown wings and tail. The bill is browner in colour. Young males may begin to acquire their adult plumage in their fifth year and are not fully ‘attired’ until they are seven.”
For the curious twitcher, on the cover of Bower, you can see a Great bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis). In the two collages above, and in the middle one below, framed by a blush of pink, playing peep between the Blue pincushions (Brunonia australis), the Satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus). Elsewhere, in the last collage on this page, in a bower fashioned from a sprig of Swamp mahogany (Eucalyptus robusta) you can see a Spotted bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata).
Please step this way for a glimpse at how our work for Bower began. Our process, then, one of modified bonnets for bowers, created before we heard the music, and, as such, their response is not where the final pieces, you see here, landed.
From where things began to where they are headed, we are currently working on a limited edition (of two) artists’ book featuring these Bower collages. Collect on! Treasure polish!
“Well camouflaged, individual Spotted bowerbirds are sometimes quite difficult to see among the vegetation.... Their presence may be indicated by their distinctive avenue-bower, which is typically built under a shrub and is often decorated with whitish, green, red or shiny objects, including bones, snail shells and berries, often including metallic and glass objects. Unlike some other species, there appears to be no preference for a particular colour when it comes to choosing these decorative objects.”
Of birds, still, always, for The Overwintering Project: Mapping Sanctuary, we have created a print, With a slow and deliberate wing beat, featuring an Eastern curlew.
You can purchase one of these limited edition prints through our online store. The migration process is swift.
The title of this post borrowed for own bower, here on Marginalia, from the description of Bowerbirds on Bush Heritage Australia, where you can read about the particular bowerbird with a penchant for “tiny pink cutlery”.
Image credit: From the inside cover of the album, Bower, by Genevieve Lacey and Marshall McGuire, 2021
