GROUP ARTIST STATEMENT: 

Our project brings together poetic writing, visual illustration, and scientific studies through a children's picture book to explore the themes of playful research and shorebird conservation. We were inspired by Ken from the Little Bird Lab and his field work. We were interested in creating a way to bring light to these beautiful creatures in an artistic and lighthearted way while also introducing them to younger generations through the chosen medium of a children’s book. We chose this project, because we ultimately couldn’t decide between writing and traditional art, so we decided to combine them. For all of us, we were not used to writing poetry, so it was a pleasant challenge for everyone. We were inspired by our class listening notes, in which people had beautiful illustrations alongside useful information that were taken while listening to our first lecture about birds. What stood out to us the most were the actual birds themself. To accurately write poetry about these animals, we need to do our own research, and learning about these birds was fascinating. We were all able to learn so much about the shorebirds that we studied, as well as ourselves when looking at our artistic and poetic styles. Collaborating together, we were able to tackle a larger project than we would have been able to do on our own. As a unified final product, we are so incredibly happy with how this turned out, and it is our hope to print many copies, and maybe even one day publish our book.