"Recalling Birds"
Good Luck Gallery, Kalispell, MT
March 6th to April 17th, 2026
Reception: Friday, March 6th, 5 to 7 pm
How might extinction flatten our memory of birds?
North America has lost three billion birds since 1970 so total extinction is imaginable, if unpleasant. Recently, wallowing in a gloomy mood, I imagined how humanity might remember birds a few thousand years after their extinction.
This spring I’ll be showing a collection of photographs of birds being held at banding stations. After being weighed, measured, and banded, the researchers hold each bird reverently before releasing it. In those moments, focusing on cupped hands, the science all felt spiritual, if not fully religious.
Since dinosaurs are long extinct most of us lump them all into the same taxonomic box: Clade Dinosauria. Most of us do not remember more than a few broad categories of them. Unless you are a birder––in that case you might remember that one group of dinosaurs is not entirely extinct, Ornithurae, yet.
From there, it is a few flighty hops of imagination to speculate that in a few thousand years, if birds go extinct, humanity might not remember them very accurately. We might even lump them into one crude category like dinosauria or ornithurae. Without fossils, people might rely on archeological texts, like these photographs, to study them.
I started volunteering at the bird banding station at Glacier National park in 2021. At first, holding a living dinosaur was enough motivation to wake up at 4:00AM. But when I realized how deeply perplexing the process of aging individual birds can be, I was obsessed. I spent my winter weekends studying the guides to bird molt. Soon after that I was taking trips to volunteer with other banding stations around the region.
Mostly, I stuck to learning the fickle techniques of bird handling and aging. Often enough, however, during a slow moment before a bird was released, I took pictures and let my mind wander. What if you found these photographs a few thousand years from now? How would you interpret their meaning? Perhaps you would think they depict a kind of religion…
This is the premise of an exhibition of photography I’m showcasing at the Goodluck Gallery in Kalispell between March 6 and April 17, 2026. It is a cyanotype photography show of birds and scientists. I’ll be selling the prints and donating the profits to Flathead Audubon.
I hope you’ll join me at the opening reception on Friday, March 6th from 5 to 7pm. After that, on Monday the 9th, I will be presenting a mix of art and science at the Flathead Audubon Society General meeting with Glacier biologist, Lisa Bate.
These images were created by a digital camera between 2021 and 2025. They are not staged, subjects were not posing for photographs, but were part of a standardized process. All of the animals were handled in accordance with official regulations and permits.
Work will be for sale through the Good Luck Gallery in starting in March 2026. Profits will support bird conservation work through the Flathead Audubon Society.
This subset of sample images are cyanotype prints on 100% cotton paper. The circles are 11” across.