Pretty fascinating how a scanned feather becomes a formulation of pixels. When the feather enlarges on the screen, it could easily be the black and white threads on a piece of fabric.
What do you call the individual "threads" on the feather? The strands that a bird can keep so in order, but that a human hand can spread apart and fail to realign perfectly again?
Holding the feather, I can feel these "threads" want to stay together. They elastically resist being pulled apart. Bending as far as possible before splitting with a softness and a lightness equivalent to a moth's wing brushing a lampshade. Once the "threads" separate, the feather takes on a ragged quality that makes it seems dirty or wet even though it isn't.
Then, the splits in the feather can be arranged evenly and intentionally and the feather can become a design, a pattern, a leaf, or a pine tree.
1 comment:
They are pretty amazing. And the shapes, as to their function, as to where they are located on the body....the wing....
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