Barred O W L
Strix varia
—Feral
Enatic
I see you. Hands in the earth. Bare feet in the sky, on bark covered in muck.
* * *
I did not intentionally seek to make art with the bodies of dead animals. It began with photographs of my much younger siblings in the rural Kansas environment we grew up in. Portraits capturing interactions with the world that to my understanding only children were privy to— sensory, embodied, unencumbered by societal expectations of what was deemed acceptable human behavior. I envied this wildness. A knowing I had somehow lost.
* * *
When I moved from my tiny hometown, landing in sprawling metropolitan Phoenix, I quickly adopted new kin to continue my vicarious photographic existence. I became a nanny for a family of five siblings, like my own, lovingly referred to by their mother as “feral children.” Barefoot and curious, I learned their relational language of play and became a part of their wondrous realm. One day, they declared they had a gift for me and triumphantly presented me with a dead mockingbird. It was unexpected, yet I was not surprised either. Trusting their wisdom, I took the bird home, thus beginning my collection.
* * *
Suddenly, I was discovering dead birds everywhere, every day, as though falling from the sky at my feet, along sidewalks, in neighbors’ yards and parking garages. I made experimental prints with their bodies on photo paper resulting in reverse shadow images, as though I was capturing their spirit. On a trip back home, my mother told me she had seen a dead bird on the side of the highway.
I can still recall the vivid image of its white feathered chest glowing in my headlights as I pulled up. Drawing closer, I recognized the animal as an owl, appearing perfectly unscathed, as though it were voluntarily laying in the ditch. I was suddenly struck by the gravitas of its death, so clearly human-caused. Later, I learned that it was this barred owl’s mating season, during which their active waking hours extend further into dusk and dawn. This makes them susceptible to car collisions in the more frequent traffic, blinded by the glare of headlights. It occurred to me then that this creature was the most beautiful and tragic thing I’d ever seen.
Touching this fallen being was a great and forbidden gift, holding it to my bare chest, feeling its delicate plumes against my skin. I became aware of its weight in my arms, supporting its broken neck with my hand, both akin to cradling a human baby. In that moment something took over, a deep and primal urge, an innate desire I did not recognize. I began to rock and sway, humming an improvised lullaby, our animal bodies intertwined in this maternal dance. I thought back to my young muses, feeling their wildness rising in me. It felt like a reclamation.
Ashley Czajkowski
Visual Artist
—Mesa, Arizona, USA