sculpture class day by day

the music is "the magpie and the crow" one of my own 'compositions' -----magpies---- Like any person with insecurities and superstitions, and no will of their own, I've been assessing my world through the activities of the local wildlife. I have a piece of territory by the flats where I live that I consider mine, marked, in the way all good mammals mark territory, with discarded cigarette butts and rolled up balls of chewing gum. And the inventory of creatures is as follows. A bunch of squirrels have a kind of B road past where I stand filling my lungs, that runs through a pine tree, over a birch tree and into the giant oak that gnarls its way heavenward, looking like a gigantic sprig of broccoli turned on its stem. I noticed only last week that the squirrels had made a nest, about three quarters high up in the tree, I noticed because they were making lots of noise arranging the leaves into an oval structure which they darted into and out of. The three squirrels are usually being attacked by two magpies who believe the tree to be theirs, although you hardly ever see them house-keeping in it. But animals is animals and if they think of it as home then I suppose they have every right to get out their magpie shotguns and pepper the interlopers. The magpies also enjoy heady days of aerial combat with the crows, who don't exactly live in the tree but use it as a kind of motorway services as they come from whatever field or farm and go to whatever park or pond to goose step around looking for scraps. I like crows, that shiny black, and their air of indifference that means you can get really near them before they react, and unlike most birds they just toddle a bit faster and avoid you rather than running properly away. Never taking actual flight, never fleeing. Creatures with guts. The main players in my mind game of prediction are the magpies of course. One for sorrow, two for joy. And I believe them to be representative because to my chagrin they are hardly ever in each others company, paralleling the path of what is my sad love story. I stand there with my smoke between my fingers, trying to get another minute or two closer to the grim reaper (what have I got to live for?) and watch for them so I can read the outcome of today's desires to see that most elusive of prey, the girl who isn't ever there. And true to form one of the magpies makes it's way across the rooftop, or through the oak, and even when the crows need to be supervised off the tree, or the squirrels are leaving behind sweet wrappers of leaves, the magpie will do it's best to usher them all away from it's home. But nine times out of ten alone, just the one, probably named sorrow. So I stand there and yell in my mind, "Where is she? why aren't you together?” But I don't think it can hear, it will just go about it's business looking for whatever it is that needs digging up in the grass, alone, but it would seem, content. Maybe the partner is a moaning magpie and this is peace and quiet. But today the sun came out for a while, and for the first time the two of them, both named joy this time, were hunting for sustenance in the guttering, not more than six inches apart at any one time. So all I have to do now is have the resolve to wait the day out and work out how to insinuate myself into her day so the prediction comes true. Of course, like all superstitions, I have no idea what the birds do when I come in again, and they are out of my sight. #hepworth #sculpture #adulteducation #art #henrymoore #rodin #artclass #koons