Friday, April 12, 2013

Passenger Pigeon Diorama

After Steve's post I thought I would put up this picture of the beautiful PP diorama in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. If I remember correctly it is set somewhere in Iowa. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Reid! Though I'm SURE I've seen this exact same diorama as an illustration in some book or article about the birds before. I once painted a guhzillion Pass P's on a 14 ft. tipi cover I had years ago--I wanted to portray "life before the whiteman" in our Southeatern forests in black silhouettes on the white canvas tipi background(even though yes, I know the tipi was really a Western plains-type shelter, but I used one to camp in--somtimes LIVED in it upon various evictions from whiteman rental houses for usually animal related violations. Practicing the option of "vagrancy" as a lifestyle....)--and I had everything I could think of on that tipi--mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, as well as an Eastern Forest native family and their pack dogs, among numerous trees and other plants. All across the top I painted passenger pigeons in one huge flock, eventually blending together until it was a solid black mass, whereupon I painted the main celestial beings--the sun, moon, and stars. It was quite a project, but I got lots of compliments on it while the tipi lasted(about 10 years). I did take some photos of it back then....Anyway, the passenger pigeons seemed to elicite the most comments from people who saw it, and knew INSTANTLY what I was depicting there!....L.B.