Blackbird's Prayer

Blackbird's Prayer is the latest in a line of what I like to call my minimal intervention sculptures. These are sculptures I've made from found materials, where I've done little actual manipulation of the materials themselves. Instead, I either mount and display a material in pretty much the same state as I found it (letting its intrinsic qualities speak for themselves) or I put together two or more found objects/materials to create an altogether new object, as is the case with my earlier piece, War of The Rosies.

Blackbird's Prayer came about through the tidying up a log store in my back garden. As I was removing the logs I turned the one containing the blackbird nest on its end and was instantly taken with its visual impact - looking like some primitive, gaping-mawed Earth deity. Having decided that it was perfect exactly as it was all I then did was to drill a hole into it, from the underside upwards, and mount it on a rusty old display stand that I had lying around in my art store.

'War of The Rosies' by artist Wayne Chisnall

I suppose that technically this can be seen as a collaboration piece between myself and the blackbird that built the nest, although, not a conscious collaboration on her part. Oddly enough, about two days after I removed the dried-out wood with its attached nest (from last year's nesting season), the blackbird returned and proceeded to build a new nest in the same part of the log store. The nesting site is only a few feet from my kitchen door and, as she's unfazed by my comings and goings, I've taken to leaving food out for her - partly as thanks for her creative contribution. As you can see from the photo of my collaborator, sitting in her nest, I've fortified the surrounding area with a bit of barbed wire to hopefully deter the local cats from investigating too closely. For some reason, blackbirds prefer to nest relatively close to the ground. Maybe it's so that their fledglings don't have as far to fall when they first leave the nest.

3 'Hollow Dog' oil sketches, 2020, by artist Wayne Chisnall

It's serendipitous that this new find should so fit with my existing body of work, what with the orifice theme that runs through some of it, or with the similarity to the Hollow Dogs, the wide-mouthed creatures that appeared from seemingly nowhere during my self-imposed 12-month-long oil painting challenge. Or maybe it's because of the these similarities that I was drawn to this beautiful find in the first place. 

Blackbird, nesting in the log store, 2023