Shapeshifting with Ravens

Three ravens photo by Beth Surdut 2013

Watching three black ravens ride the breezes near my studio, wings silvered by the sun, I think I would exchange my human form so I could swoop and play with them in the borderless New Mexico sky.
See my raven clan @http://www.bethsurdut.com/listening-to-raven.html

Ashes to Art-- Support Colorado Firefighters

The  Survivor by  Beth Surdut for The Ashes to Art Project

I am one of more than 70 artists nationwide participating in The Ashes to Art Project, creating artwork to raise funds for firefighters. Incorporating charcoal collected from the 2012 Colorado wildfires, the artworks are being sold October 7-21, 2012 via an online auction at Bidding for Good http://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/AuctionHome.action?vhost=theashestoartproject2012

The Survivor, http://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/Item.action?id=180442959,  is a three-dimensional shadow box  featuring a pigment print of a young raven standing on branches drawn with charcoal from the Colorado fire. In front of the raven is a collection of charred wood taken from the forests devastated by the flames.

The people in Colorado are my neighbors. The firefighters are my heroes. I just want to help.

The fight to save lives, homes and forest took a tremendous toll. Three lives and more than 600 homes were lost, including several belonging to firefighters. More than 250,000 acres were burned. Proceeds from the online auction will be used to replace equipment for the Poudre Canyon Volunteer Fire Protection District in Colorado, near the worst fire damage and the area where the charcoal was collected.
By nature's power and whim, I could just as well have been in their situations.

I think speaking up,  stepping out in some way is important. I watched the Las Conchas fires encroach on Los Alamos last year here in New Mexico and wrote about the habitat destruction in Orion Magazine.

For my ongoing Listening to Raven series of drawings and collected stories of science and spirit, one of the myths I've come across is that Raven was a beautiful white bird who brought fire to humanity.  While carrying the burning firebrand across the skies, Raven's white feathers became irrevocably blackened by the smoke as he flew. Other stories, especially the trickster tales, put Raven in dire circumstances that he really shouldn't survive. Yet he sometimes literally suffers terrible wounds, puts himself back together, and goes on, as we do-changed, but anticipating the next phase of life.I  hope a  viewer sees and  feels a  piece of  their own story in The Survivor. "

 To view and bid on original artwork, including The Survivor by Beth Surdut, visit BiddingForGood.com/TheAshesToArtProject2012. Bidding will take place October 7-21, 2012.

Conniving, vindictive and terrifyingly intelligent

The Gathering  of  Ravens  by Beth Surdut

A neighborhood association in Santa Fe county let loose a hawk and an owl to keep the ravens away because they were busily destroying roofs. I know the neighborhood-- it's one of those places where you can't paint your door in a color not approved by the neighborhood association. They vetoed the traditional turquoise blue that keeps evil spirits away.  Enough said.

One of my collectors in Alaska sent me this: According to the Anchorage Daily News, landfill workers are distraught by their inability to out-think the raven, "It’s the ravens- the conniving, vindictive and terrifyingly intelligent ravens- that really wreak havoc. These are the same ravens, everyone swears, that somehow picked out the personal truck of a worker who had been on harassment duty and proceeded to eat all the black rubber off his windshield wipers." When the harasser changed his truck for a red one, they did it again!