Reflection

Reflection

I learned about how my state bird, the Brown Pelican, was driven out of its home due to DDT runoff. The harmful insecticide was sprayed to kill bugs, and it ran off into the water and affected the fish. The pelicans that consumed the fish were affected and when they laid eggs, the shells were weak and their offspring would die. The birds then left Louisiana, and it took years to get the population up again. I was so motivated by the idea of the Brown Pelicans being gone, I centered my piece around that. I could not imagine waking up one day and having the beautiful bird gone from my own backyard. My piece depicts a bird, one I decided to make up. I thought by generalizing the species of bird, the viewer could better picture any type of bird in a similar situation. The background is a collage of maps, cut up and reorganized into a latticed pattern. The misconstrued map symbolizes the bird’s struggle of leaving home, having to relocate to unknown lands, as well as disrupted migration patterns.