Bird retrospective

In 2007, we took a trip to Vancouver Island. While we were waiting for the ferry in Port Angeles, Washington, we admired the huge cormorant statues by Duncan Yves McKiernan, and I wondered if I could make small versions of those elegant forms on the pottery wheel. When we got home, I gave it a try. I was five years into clay, and still pretty new to altering thrown forms. I ended up with a bunch of phallic abstract birds that looked like this:

(This was also before I learned how to photograph my work, and I thought a blue tablecloth would make a satisfactory backdrop for a formal shot. Oof.)

In the intervening years, I have made hundreds of chickens...

...and hundreds of penguins,...

...and learned a ton about clay and design and googly eyes.

Today I recalled those not-so-long-necked wheel-thrown-and-altered cormorants of yore, drew upon everything I've learned in the meantime about making wheel-thrown-and-altered chickens and penguins, and came up with a pair of dinosaurish herons.

These birds are standing on chopstick legs, but I'm thinking once they're fired, I'll make metal legs for them--or bribe my beloved engineer to make metal legs for them--and stick them in the garden.