For the Birds
For the Birds. Artwork/Candace Nicol Garlock.
By Candace Nicol Garlock
First day of Summer 2021: It’s early in the morning, sun hasn’t quite risen, and my 3-year-old granddaughter has her eyes open. She is cuddled next to me. I really would like to keep sleeping. “The birds are awake, Booma!,” her signal to me that I should open my eyes and talk to her. She begins to sing a little to herself, another signal that I need to wake up, although she hasn’t quite rubbed my face to see if I will open my eyes. Again, she mentions the birds, and I open my eyes. Yes, they are really making a fuss this morning. The window is open and from the sounds outside, I can tell they are getting in an early morning meal at the bird feeder.
When someone asks me “What happened to you during the pandemic?” I think “Well, a lot,” but the constant reminder of life came from looking through the living room window, watching a cascade of different types of birds vying for their spot at the bird feeder. Over and over and over! So many hours spent on the sofa just watching them and being thankful for being alive.
For the Birds Quilt Block 1. Artwork/Candace Nicol Garlock.
For the Birds Quilt Block 2. Artwork/Candace Nicol Garlock.
The pandemic of course was tough on us all, but the worst of it was the isolation, not being able to be with my grandkids. At the same time that we were forced to vacate Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) in March, my daughter, her husband, and baby girl got sick – REALLY sick. My husband and I would drop off packages, and I would just touch the front door window with my hand, meeting Emsley’s little hand between a wall of glass. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t be with her Booma, and I didn’t want to understand, but I knew too well how sick I could become. How sick my husband could become. The media scared us enough . . . we were the vulnerable ones. The ones that could die easily from COVID-19.
My oldest daughter has three children, and they came over all the time before COVID-19. (That’s what the five year old says – “Before COVID-19.”) They now all had to isolate, too. There were times when we would FaceTime, but it’s not the same as hanging out and where were the cuddles? Grandkids and grandparents need that! So most of the time, I sat at the sofa, with my laptop while trying to adjust to a new teaching norm. David (my husband) installed a bird feeder outside, and so the birds became my muses for a new body of work.
Stay Away. Artwork/Candace Nicol Garlock.
The birds appeared earlier as ceramic sculptures in 2019, but during the pandemic I began to really watch the personalities of the birds at the feeder. They were all so different. They played with each other, they cooperated in their own way to maximize their time eating. I began to try to find out what kind of birds were coming each day, then I started even noticing ones that didn’t eat at the bird feeder. Imagine my surprise when I started to notice three magpies swooping down outside my studio window, eating the cat food. I moved the food closer to the window so I could watch them. I was so excited because my granddaughter Madelyn has the spirit of a magpie and thus is nicknamed “Maddie Magpie.” While watching them, I could picture Maddie running around in her house, squawking at her older brothers, happily teasing them with treasures that she found — I’m smiling at the thought that the treasures are actually her brother’s little toys that were left on the floor or table. I could picture her brothers chasing her to get their toys back and she laughing in her carefree way.
Waiting. Artwork/Candace Nicol Garlock.
During the fall of the pandemic I was invited to several print exchanges. The birds were present. In the first one I was asked to respond to the theme for the This is Me print exchange for Boulder State University; I immediately envisioned these houses in disrepair that held family secrets. I think, I was also thinking about how isolated it may seem right now with COVID-19 restrictions and that we need to all stay indoors and separate from loved ones. The birds in the print are actually drawn from the collection of ceramic “fashionistas” that I created to honor the personalities of family and friends. They each have their own quirks that make them unique and lovable, just like family.
Waiting II. Artwork/Candace Nicol Garlock.
At this time, I, myself got sick and all I could do was sleep and concentrate on breathing. My daughter and sister texted every hour (maybe more than that), making sure I was keeping up with my breathing exercises and sleeping sitting up. I was on my favorite sofa in front of the window, watching the birds again. The birds were there all the time now. Their chattering was a peaceful reminder that life continues. I would get through this. After this experience, I did another print, a reminder of our fragilities, our journeys together. Waiting II still held the birds in the windows. Outside was a woven grid – searching for interconnectedness.
The birds! The pandemic belongs to them, and to them I say thank-you for helping me find happiness in a world turned upside down.
Candace Nicol Garlock is an artist working in Reno and Professor of Art at Truckee Meadows Community College, Reno, Nevada. She is a board member of Rocky Mountain Print Alliance and serves on the Reno Public Arts Committee. As an artist, Candace uses an array of mediums in her work. The coalescence of printmaking techniques, painting, photography (and sculpture, too!) overlap and converge with color, texture, and line in a collaboration of mixed, experimental beauty. With her appreciation of the interconnectedness of everything, she elevates relationships: human and environment, human and animal, human and human.
Candace’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and occupies such prestigious permanent collections as the Boise Art Museum, Corcoran College of Art and Design, Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper at Rutgers University, Southern Graphics Council Archives, The Kinsey Institute, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and Painting and Sculpture Museum Association, Istanbul, Turkey. She has been awarded the distinguished Nevada Arts Council Artist Fellowship in 2009 and the 2017 Nevada Regent’s Creative Activities award. She also has been awarded an honorable mention in Printmaking Today, a review of fine art printmaking at the Dedalo Center for Contemporary Art, and the Castle of Castiglione Museum, Abruzzo, Italy. Her work can also be seen in 100 Artists of the Male Figure by E. Gibbons. You can see more of her work at www.candacenicolgarlock.com.
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