I went to an art ther­a­py con­fer­ence in Nia­gara Falls this week­end. In one of the work­shops I attend­ed, we were to cre­ate an ani­mal to rep­re­sent our­selves as an infant, ado­les­cent, adult, and elder.

I most con­nect­ed with the ani­mal that rep­re­sent­ed what I hope to be as an elder. It was an unapolo­getic seag­ull. I sup­pose that image of the seag­ull came to mind because I came across many of these birds when I arrived in Nia­gara Falls.

Here is my Plas­ticine seag­ull, I took a pic­ture of it when I got back to my hotel room. She’s rather small; her body is about the size of my thumb.

 

The wingspan…

 

The next day I attend­ed a work­shop about the art of prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude, in which I came across the quote: today I’m hap­pi­er than a bird with a fry. So then lat­er on when I con­tem­plat­ed what to put on the com­mu­ni­ty mur­al (a large piece of can­vas placed in the main area of the con­fer­ence, every­one was invit­ed to add to it) I imme­di­ate­ly thought of the quote, and my unapolo­getic seag­ull. This was my con­tri­bu­tion to the mural.

 

Lat­er on Mike and I were walk­ing along the falls and we saw a seag­ull stand­ing on the rail­ing, look­ing like he’s enjoy­ing him­self (or her­self?) and not one bit con­cerned despite peo­ple get­ting close to it to take pic­tures of it. They do have a kind of dig­ni­fied expres­sion, don’t they?

 

Then after I came home I down­load the pho­tos from the mem­o­ry card, and real­ized that I cap­tured an image of a seag­ull emerg­ing from the mist of the Horse­shoe Falls.

 

Nev­er real­ly paid much atten­tion to seag­ulls before. But I quite like the idea of the unapolo­getic seag­ull. The exer­cise of cre­at­ing an ani­mal to rep­re­sent dif­fer­ent life stages is also an inter­est­ing way of reflect­ing on the past and envi­sion­ing the future. Per­haps an idea for an art project or journaling?

More art and pho­tos to come!

Have a hap­py Tues­day! :D