Developing an Art Collection

Developing an Art Collection  - The Land of Giant Insects

In 1999 Martin Pierce began a journey into bronze casting with 8 collections of door hardware and cabinet pulls. Forward to 2022 where the road has forked, and a wide tributary is winding its way to a collection of art sculptures.

Martin Pierce and his first collection have just been featured on Artsy Shark, a site that  helps  promote artists and their work. While the fictional story behind  this collection is ongoing, we thought it timely to begin telling the tale and  by explaining the fictional landscape and it’s characters.

A Tale of Giants and Insectophile Humans  -

In today’s world, insects and birds lack the social and environmental importance they deserve. Humans in this world dominate the planet and their demands are contrary to the well-being of other species. In the new and  fictional world, Martin Pierce, through sculpture and painting reverses the relative size of humans to insects with the former becoming diminutive and the latter becoming giants. The fictional scale also gives rise to a new relationship and the adversarial human is reinvented as an insect loving humanoid. While the relationship between these 2 species continues to evolve it is built on an agrarian lifestyle where humanoids and insects farm together and jointly partake in the fruits of their labors.

Landscape

The landscape is one of mangroves, yuccas, and bougainvillea with swaths of land cleared for farming. The topography is varied with craggy cliffs and rolling hills and lower lying valleys and swamps.

Characters

Grasshopper – resting on a mushroom and casting his stupendous shadow over the humanoid hiding in the mushrooms spongy fold. Both characters make their appearance in annual sporting events.

10”W x 9”D x 14”H

Stag Beetle – at least 2 varieties exist, the shiny suave steely and darker mottled bronze.  They too compete in annual events but also play a key role as farmers  tilling the soil ready for planting. The stag beetle makes his sculptural appearance as a runner sometimes accompanied by a humanoid rider and as one of 2 adversarial beetles sparring on a piece of oak bark.

20”W x 15”D x 6”H

Hornet – shown feeding on a large apple with an irritating humanoid for company

13”W x 10”D x 13”H

Wasp – portrayed as a solo runner or accompanied by a humanoid rider

11”W x 8”D x 6”H

Jay – flying toward the east or toward the west

17”W x 12”D x 4”H

Dung beetle and Raven – following soon

Black Crested Red Whiskered Bulbul

With more time to walk we are able to see more Bulbuls in the Hollywood hills and have managed to photograph several.
We first encountered this petite bird with colorful markings in the 1990’s at the Huntington gardens and felt quite privileged to site this bird that we have always associated with Asia and tropical environments. What we hadn’t realized was that the Bulbul was a common resident of the park in the 1970’s and 80’s and was on the A list as a non-indigenous species and destined for eradication. Thankfully sufficient public and birder opposition resulted in the suspension of this policy and now we enjoy this cheery musical creature in our own neighborhood.

I had a great deal of fun reading about the bird’s diet and habitat on Wikipedia and as a result know this passerine bird to be a fugivore. For those unfamiliar with these terms they simply mean that this is a bird that likes to perch and lives on a fruit diet. As a frugivore it makes sense that the Bulbul now thrives in Florida and southern California where fruit is abundant.
While the Bulbul is named for its small red-whiskers the males back crest and red abdominal feathers are much easier to spot as can be seen here. Like all passerines the Bulbul has three toes that point forward and one pointing back which makes perching an easy task.
If you are looking for a less flighty bird and one that you would like to use as a cabinet pull then consider the swallow pull or if you are searching for a wall statement check out our bronze jay bird.

To read more about the Bulbul’s near eradication please the article by Mary Barker


For those seeking to improve their ornithological knowledge or looking for words for Scrabble Wikipedia is great resource.