Feathers reflect beautiful colors in the light, and their shapes are varied and intriguing. What bird was here? How was it adorned?
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was established in 1918 partly to protect birds from feather fashion. On people. In the 1800s, every fashionable lady wanted a hat with a bigger, better, more exotic feather, wing, or even whole bird (!) to embellish their appearance. To counter this trend, a “bird hat” boycott was started by Harriet Hemenway in Boston, which eventually led to the Audubon Society and the MBTA.
But still today, we are not allowed to possess feathers. “There is no exemption for molted feathers or those taken from the road- or window-killed birds,” says the Act. It is hard not to pick them up.
And so, an imagined comic: a jail with a group (mostly of women), and one says to another, “What are you in for?” and everyone shouts, “Feathers!”
Making art with representations of feathers, (in this case some hand drawn stencils I created for my 2019 quilt, Don’t Look Behind You) keeps the feathers legally close in this quilt as well.
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