Sometimes ideas don't work out the way I envisioned them. For some time now, I've wanted to translate my sand paintings into outdoor installations. But, the more I thought about working outdoors the less appealing it seemed. I love the idea of making work that establishes a dialogue with nature but not the idea of using large amounts of sand colored with non-food safe dyes that could leach into the ground. Recently, I had an idea to use more eco-friendly materials, including bird seed, spent coffee grounds and rice colored with food-safe dyes. The other advantage to using bird seed is that (hopefully) the birds would eat it, creating some interesting opportunities to photograph the work in various stages of entropy and decay. After scouting for a place to conduct my first experiment, I found the perfect place. It was picturesque and near a marsh where it seemed likely to be frequented by lots of birds. I packed up some materials and set out to make it happen. After I started working, I realized very quickly that the media gets lost easily even in low-growing grass. It takes a lot of media (much more than I anticipated) to make the work stand out against the landscape. Revisiting the work a day later also revealed that birds have yet to discover my buffet of art and seed. The installation is disappointingly exactly as I left it. All is not lost however. I'll be back later this week with more media to give it another shot.
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