Bird (December)

Photograph of a bird handmade by Mirka Mora, Heide Gallery down the road, 

taken by Carol O'Connor

 
Doubtless we have a bird in the hand, here. But what kind of bird? I sometimes wonder if Mirka ever cared to work from nature, much. Or, just to get the gist. On page 86 of ‘Love and Clutter’ she confesses of a favourite bird book, “it makes me cry. Love is hiding in birds’ names: pratincole, swallow-plover, sea curlew, whimbrel, sandpiper, godwit, tattler, stint, knot, hooded dotterel, and many more.” We get the sense this December exhibit might be one of them and that love is hiding in its name. Her bird is well-fed, unusually feathered, alive with imagination.