Spix's Macaw book
Spix's Macaw

By Carol Schwartzott
Freeville, New York: Lilliput Press, 2008. Edition of 7.

Assemblage housed in 8 x 10 x 4" painted wooden box. Materials include a used picture frame, paper cut-outs of Macaws, glass bottles containing an assortment of found and collected items including birdseed, parakeet feathers, nuts, dried moss, remaindered book, paint, thread, ribbon.

Carol Schwartzott: "A modern curiosity cabinet, I like to think of it as a contemporary 'time machine' that visualizes the environment and habits of Spix's Macaw, an endangered and extinct in the wild bird."

Techniques: Original maps and bird illustrations from the artist's personal collection of old books were scanned and printed on an Epson Photo 2000 using archival inks and paper. These scans were later hand-embellished using paint, colored pencils, graphite, and inks. Stencils are the artist's hand-cut original designs, printed using water based paints. Shelves and stops are constructed of archival foam core, covered first with japanese paper and recovered with a variety of printed and hand modified papers. The box houses two layers: above is the book [Spix's Macaw: The Race to Save the World's Rarest Bird by Toney Juniper (Atria Books, 2002)] and below the cabinet with contained ephemera and three-dimensional exhibit.

This work originally created for a fund-raising auction. "Faces in the Wild is an annual artist auction aimed at raising awareness and funds for wildlife protection. When I came across Spix's Macaw I immediately thought of presenting this endangered species within a cabinet, a technique that I began using early on in my career as a book artist and continue to enjoy. I frequently find small stashes of interesting materials and am also the recipient of many delightful hand-me-down gifts from friends and very often they seem to find a use in my art. So, the Spix's Macaw project soon housed not only the remaindered book I found on EBay, but a collection of molted feathers from a parakeet, nuts and seeds from some old pot-pouri, dried moss from last summer's flower arrangements, and any number of stencils and paper trimmings that I recycled from past projects."
(SOLD)