HELP NEEDED - Invasion of the Egrets

Little did I know when I sculpted these bird-women last year that they would come to be  a reflection of things to come; invasion of these disgusting Egrets/Herons was just a season away...
Pardes Hanna, specifically the area known as the Wadi, has been taken over by a huge flock of these messy, nesting, noisy, smelly birds, which have moved into the pine trees just a stone throw from my life. Unfortunately, throwing stones at them endangers the passers by between my terrace and the trees and its a risk I am on the verge of taking!
The local authorities are at a loss as to how to solve this health hazard and environmental affliction, though from my research I know that cutting off the tree tops is a viable solution. Meantime passers by, parked cars me and everyone around the building I am in, are dealing with a mass of messy smelly droppings and I am about to go shopping for an air gun or a chain saw.
 Someone told me that they are a birdwatchers delight, right in the center of town. As photogenic as they might be, they are bringing my blood to boiling point and I am begging

for help to get rid of them. I know, there are helium balloons, ultrasonic sirens, nets, been to that website, read it and heard that these are ineffective.There is evidently no national organization that will deal with it - ANY IDEAS ANYONE????

The old adages

You know me, I am not a great lover of cliches and old adages. Quote one and there is bound to be another that says the opposite. But the older I get.... and I am NOT saying I feel old, the more often one will crop up that fits the moment.

"To teach is to learn twice." - Joseph Joubert for example, comes up for me in art classes often. A great method of coil construction I taught and learned at the same time had me making pottery ( two bowls) and loving it after years of clay sculpture and NO utensils. (no photos yet). And the refresher classes I gave on how to sculpt a face had me learning all over again too! Its pretty amazing how explaining something can become a new way of seeing. I learn so much, gain all these little and huge insights in every class and from everyone who comes to work in my studio with me.
Oh, then there is that counter adage that says Those who cant, teach. No idea who came up with that one, but wonder if it was anyone who has ever taught?

Thanks all of you who teach me so much when you come to learn!

This is one of my teach by example  heads.

Can't Hurry Love

Twice a year for a couple of months there is nothing but the studio in my life. Covered in clay all the time, I keep coming up with just one more thing I want to do ( and dry and fire !) before the Open Studio date. Then comes the deadline of no more pieces...because they just wont dry in time.

I have reached that point but ideas are still flowing and the call of the clay is too strong to resist. Once again I am faced with the inevitable truth that you cant rush clay anymore than you can hurry love. Which doesn't mean we dont try ...

But in fact, its the clay that makes the decisions for me mostly, deciding when and what it wants to become; many of the pieces just got bigger and different.

I am looking forward to hearing your input.

This is an invitation.

When is done? Mixed media - 3 and 2 D.

This sculpture is called 'profile of a reluctant warrior'.
After sculpting, firing, underglazing, refiring, attaching copper and bolts and screws, I still needed to photograph and filter the photo to get the feel I wanted of distant,historic, but actual- through mixed media - clay / metal / photo
When is the piece done? And is the photo actually a separate piece ?

Belonging

Everybody belongs. To someone, something, somewhere. We think of ourselves as free individuals but we have our comfort zone. Home. And most of us have a favourite chair. A "my seat".
I have a great tv armchair with an elevating foot support that has hardly ever been in front of a tv. Its my meditation station, my reading post, my knitting, chatting, coffee, staring into nothing chair. I also have a particular way of sitting in it. Its true the chair dictates it. I started thinking about how people buy and choose a chair. How they sit on them. When they sit that way. How they belong to a chair. Here are a few of the results. You are welcome to send me some pictures of how you sit in your chair.
Take a look at this link - Shani in the Knoll chairs. (dontsmilenow.com )
Who wouldnt want to belong to a Knoll chair?

The news

Why do I have piles of newspapers again? What enticed me to subscribe to Ha'aretz and have newspaper/coffee in the morning? There it is at my gate on the second floor - does the delivery man wish I forgot my stair light so he could leave it in the box downstairs? Almost first thing in the a.m. I bring in the paper, save the long slim plastic bags to protect the planet and find something to make with them, and sit down with the paper and coffee. I skim my way through the pages and think what a good citizen I could be if I were involved enough to make a difference ( yea, how aside from cursing quietly as I read?) . Coffee and browse over, the paper gets dumped in the pile behind the sofa (somewhere underneath there is a pretty wrought iron newspaper holder crushed by the weight) to be recycled as papier mache maybe, or when I can carry the heavy load downstairs. Then thanks to this interlude I weave through the day with the residue of unease but hardly a memory of details.

Back and Forth

Another medium is creeping into my life. Going back and forth between clay and canvas is strangely stickier than I would have thought. I haven't yet found the method of parallel work in both 2 and 3 dimensions.
Its a different gut feeling - well of course its a different language. As part of the learning and discovery process - I am finding out where clay and canvas fit into different moods and modes of self expression.Its a bit like translating or writing in two languages with very different cultures.