Shae Bird

illustrator/musician/human

[shaebirdwonders]

https://soundcloud.com/moanamusic These are some images I did a few months ago as part of lyric books for the Perth-based band Moana. I play with them when we’re in the same state sometimes, on violin. These were some of the crowd funding rewards. Each illustration corresponds to one of the songs on the new EP. Moana gave me a string of words/ideas to work from for each song. It’s always enlivening to rediscover that I still do love drawing, and that it’s slowly creeping back after my uni degree. Some of these I drew on the grass at Lentil as Anything. These are also the first pictures I signed myself as Shae Bird.

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So, I haven’t posted since I first moved to Melbourne. There’s a few tangled reasons for this, but one of them is that I knew I’d have to change to a new facebook page (’cause I couldn’t change the url again). Here ‘tis, new today: www.facebook.com/shaebirdwonders I’m pretty sure there’ll be more things up in the coming months, like new leaves after winter. Not that that’s an Australian thing.

[shaebirdwonders]

Is Codependence Beautiful?

I was at a theatre conference a few months ago and Megan of Spare Parts Puppet Theatre was talking about the show Fox. http://www.sppt.asn.au/programme/index/fox “The dog is blind and the bird can’t fly. Bird becomes Dog’s sight and Dog becomes Bird’s wings. So they form this beautiful friendship.” Is that beautiful? I wonder about whether needing or depending on others is positive or healthy. I’m much more comfortable being depended on.  We’re far less independent than we seem, I think. We need other people socially (or, most of us), and even being “financially independent”, you depend on the rest of society to function, at least the ones involved in growing food, for instance. I don’t have any conclusions yet, but I thought the question was interesting enough to photograph as I was moving out of my room in Fremantle. I’m in Melbourne, by the way. 

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The monetary system! As I understand it. If you desire to question or contest it, please do- Let’s talk about this. What would be more functional? What can we do? This was originally my submission for a student comic anthology on myths. www.facebook.com/curtinillustrationclub

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Long time no post! Here’s a gig poster I just did! It’s great to be paid to google “cat yawning” (didn’t use any image as a direct reference, cross my heart =P) This also involved me patting my cat, moving away, taking photos and it coming for more pats. Now if I can just procrastinate less next time it’ll be perfect.

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I went down to the park and tried dancing with fairy lights. A police car went past veery slowly. Twice.  Feedback video turned to this. Casual Friday night.

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So, apparently I haven't posted about this. What. Oh children of tumblr, I've been making a thing! With other people! A theatrerie, artsy, music... A fringe thing! Which is quite appropriate, considering my last post was about Edinburgh Fringe. I have been back in Perth for two months and two days and it's been a whole lot of Fringe. Let me tell you a story. Or if you're not in the mood for a story, spoilers, here's the facebook event: www.facebook.com/events/342853489254112/ A long time ago, about 5 metres away, a friend picked me up at around midnight to record an audition song in her little studio that has since been closed. I made a post about it, in fact. sholalee.tumblr.com/post/86199880321/recently-a-friend-of-mine-asked-if-id-play-guitar A shot time before I got on an aircraft to be hurtled across the world, she called me again, saying, 'So, I have a crazy idea. Crazier than that time I picked you up at midnight to make an audition tape. Do you want to make a fringe show with me?' I said yes. She did mysterious paperwork things while I was in Europe. She wrote the blurb while I was in Budapest; I drew the promotional image in a hostel in Prague. Neither of us yet knew what the show was about. I didn't tell facebook that. Feel privileged. That's the first and second image up there. A few days after I got back to reality (oh there goes gravity) I was in an empty high school theatre relearning how to play like a three year old. We would get homework like, make up three stories about things that happened to the boy and girl, and we'll transform them into fantasy. Maja (that friend) and our wonderful director, Warwick, had since dreamed up the thread of the story, in The Moon (a cafe), which can still be found holding its tapestry together. It's about Ash and Harlan, siblings united in fantasy to escape their small town reality. They have a pen pal, East, a prince from across the great sea, that sends them letters of grand adventures in bottles. Ash yearns for that brighter reality, Harlan needs their den of wonders here. The sea witch is trying to warn them. They quest to write the final, perfect letter. I've been really enjoying dipping my glittery toe in theatre. There's this "something" that's created between a live performed and audience that I'm quite familiar with from playing live music, but it happens here too. More than the sum of its parts. It's very exciting. There's a great host of talented humans now devoting their craft, time and grey hairs towards this. Animator David Thierry, Director Warwick Doddrell, actors Daniel Buckle and Maja Liwszyc, the jack ass of all trades me, sound designer Jesse Bach (he taught me the jack ass expression), costume design by Sarah Mikula, Sam Luckman a great photographer and great friend who I describe as "the one who looks like a pirate". I'm going to get back to painting the final versions of image 3 so out animator can make them appear out of the darkness. If you're in Western Australia, come see =D. If not, enjoy anyway. The last image I feel is a good metaphor for my life right now. Artistic and chaotic afloat, but wondering how I got there in the sun.

[shaebirdwonders]

Did you hear about the Evelyn Evelyn Musical?

NO, WHAT? =D

[shaebirdwonders]

I sat on a hill and read my aunt's book about myers briggs personality types. I was feeling out of practice at "doing the people thing". It's a phrase a few friends use for being charismatic and extroverted. Talking, meeting, eyes.

Fringe has a boggling sea of shows. Instead I wondered to the meadows and saw a tiny theatre. I met a puppeteer from Glasgow who was bright and present, and made a pipe with legs skate, dance, lose its wig. Then a balloon grew out of its head and it floated, guided by black-gloved hands that weren't part of the little world they made.

Further up he path there was a gig set up, with these cats blasting blues. I drew them, and got chatting to the person next to me who gave me wine, and bought my drawing. Heck yeah, money from art.

"Can I put this on the internet" -shows photo- "yeah sure"

She later sold it to the band at twice the price plus a CD haha. And here it is: https://twitter.com/TheBlueswater/status/496393817395052544/photo/1 And here they are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-VuLx9RUvE#t=11

I met some of them later, and they offered me discount tickets to see their show, about the history of blues. I accidentally snuck in. Don't shovel me.

The frontman would ask the audience questions and people would know the answers. I had no idea. It was fascinating.Apparently there were a lot of African immigrants working in farms in America, who started developing this blues sound with vocals and guitar. The show started like this, with a song as the audience came in. The workers lost their jobs, so there was a mass movement north, and started plugging in their instruments. The next song was a chicago blues song, where he called out the band.

They went through eras and styles, soft piano and female vocals [hi Nicole] to dueling electric guitars. Finally, current blues. Apparently the White Stripes and The Black Keys are blues. Ohhh.

black + white = blue

who knew

[shaebirdwonders]

I have so many stories I haven't written about yet. I feel behind, but my schedule is self-imposed. Maybe Moana has the way of it- get lost in the far away, then drop the pennny pieces from home. This is the place:

moanatastetherainbow.blogspot.com.

I play violin in Moana the band sometimes. They're a pretty fantastic mob, and she's a rather amazing human. But I like the idea of posting as I go, so here we go, whoever is watching. I'll write about Edinburgh and go for there. Maybe. Writing is strange for me; I'm used to writing songs, writing comics; it always has something else to hold it up. They still feel a bit naked, only dressed in photos. But I went swimming bare-chested the other night. Perhaps I can learning to be comfortable.

[shaebirdwonders]

My aunt took us out of Edinburgh for the day, on roads lined with fields. Right turn, stop, down a path with cows and raspberries. We want through a little break in the leaves and emerged inside its canopy.

The branches curved out and down again into the earth. Some were held up by poles. From the branches grew little sprouts- I always thought in princess mononoke that the trees had plants growing on top of them, but this was actually part of the tree.

There was a younger yew a few metres away, and together they formed the thicket. There was such a heavy, silent, peace in there. None of us spoke.

My aunt hugged the tree. I put my hand against it and listened to the quiet. Even as we walked back towards the car, my arms still tingled.

My uncle drove us next to a hill in the middle of the country side. My aunt said there was a surprise on top. Diane and I thought it would be ruins. It was horses. 13 of them randomly live up there, left after the mine closed. The wind was so strong at the top you could almost lean into it. One of the horses came up close to me to drink water from the rocks.

Then we went to a seaside town and took a boat around an island that, this time of year, is covered in meeting birds. They hover for fish high up then dive straight down with a splash.

The night before I met up with some friends from Perth, and we saw an improvised musical that turned out to be set in a cardboard box factory. With puffins. And Darth Vader.

So many box sayings. They fit in a rhyme about Schrödinger's cat. Anyway, I saw actual puffins yesterday I saw actual puffins. They look pretty comic. So much flapping.

[shaebirdwonders]

Tonight there was a storm and a red full moon over Barcelona. I sat, watched and ate my dinner instead of going to get my camera, but I swear it looked something like this. (Brought to you by my phone)

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More on the cork board...www.pinterest.com/sholalee/old-books/

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Last Saturday I went to Edinburgh Farmer's Market in the drizzle. I talked to the tea guy for quite some time, but didn't buy any tea. Apparently our lavender in your pillow helps you sleep.

An old lady passer by helped explain to me what a scotch egg with black pudding was. It's a boiled egg in strips of meat, with cooked blood, deep fried. I bought some berries from them instead.

After staring at the organic veggies a while, I decided on turnips. I'm not sure I've ever eaten them before but they look very Beatrix Potter. I asked where they were grown. He said near by, near Perth.

Hahahahaha

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I decided to talk to the ocean, then got distracted by a really big hill.

It's called Arthur's Seat.

Walk. I meant walk.

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I ran into some familiar faces from the Western Australian Circus Festival. That didn't take long. www.facebook.com/circusfestival

They're currently going Jin and Eric. Jiineeriic. Geddit? Pretty amazing stuff.

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I keep excitedly telling people I finished my book. I mean I finished making a sketch book.

There are photos somewhere of a friend and I trying to figure out what to stab the leather with (stripped from couches on the side of the road (thanks Tilly)) and the stack of random boards and a box that sat on this while it dried, but alas, they are not here. Imagine. Here's stringing the book. It was kind of like a shoe lace, but fiddlier. Also a friend gave me a bracelet to wear, but the latch broke. So I made a new one. First day in Europe: craftamorning. Warning: many photos imminent.