ARTIST STATEMENT
I’ve watched birds all my life. As beautiful as they are, I love studying their behavior. I partially credit this interest with distracting myself from countless cancer treatments. I learned to identify birds by song and chip notes, shape and movement as well as their more obvious features. Ten years ago, I joined bird conservation efforts including Lights Out Baltimore and population surveys. During bird counts, I photo-document species that I’m observing–the photographs seen here, but altered. In only a few years, I’ve found fewer birds, and a recent scientific report bears out what I and many others have witnessed. There are three billion less birds than there were fifty years ago. Even our common birds are disappearing. I desperately hope we can #bringbirdsback by making windows safe, native gardening, drinking shade-grown coffee, avoiding pesticide use, and keeping cats indoors.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Lynne Parks is an award winning Baltimore artist and curator. She is also the Outreach Coordinator for the bird conservation and wildlife rescue organization Lights Out Baltimore. Through art advocacy and community engagement, she raises awareness about the leading causes of bird mortality and offers solutions. As a photographer, she was a recipient of the 2013 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize, and exhibited at the BMA.