The Birds of a Feather artists group will be presenting an exhibit entitled “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” at the Old Courthouse Museum, One Courthouse Square in Inverness, Florida, from May 26 through June 18, 2021. The Museum Gallery is open Mondays through Fridays from 10:00 am until 4:00 pm.

Meet the Artists May 27

An exhibit opening event with refreshments and an opportunity to meet the artists will be held on May 27, 2021, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm.

The exhibit features the iconic American poem by Wallace Stevens entitled “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

Each of the artists, including Jeanneine Cole, Joy Livingston, Chris Randle, Joi Sampsell, Brenda (Ren) Spilios, Susan Strawbridge, and Michelle Wirt, studied the poem and found their own inspirations from the 13 different stanzas of Stevens’ poem.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,   
The only moving thing   
Was the eye of the blackbird.   

II
I was of three minds,   
Like a tree   
In which there are three blackbirds.   

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.   
It was a small part of the pantomime.   

IV
A man and a woman   
Are one.   
A man and a woman and a blackbird   
Are one.   

V
I do not know which to prefer,   
The beauty of inflections   
Or the beauty of innuendoes,   
The blackbird whistling   
Or just after.   

VI
Icicles filled the long window   
With barbaric glass.   
The shadow of the blackbird   
Crossed it, to and fro.   
The mood   
Traced in the shadow   
An indecipherable cause.   

VII
O thin men of Haddam,   
Why do you imagine golden birds?   
Do you not see how the blackbird   
Walks around the feet   
Of the women about you?   

VIII
I know noble accents   
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;   
But I know, too,   
That the blackbird is involved   
In what I know.   

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,   
It marked the edge   
Of one of many circles.   

X
At the sight of blackbirds   
Flying in a green light,   
Even the bawds of euphony   
Would cry out sharply.   

XI
He rode over Connecticut   
In a glass coach.   
Once, a fear pierced him,   
In that he mistook   
The shadow of his equipage   
For blackbirds.   

XII
The river is moving.   
The blackbird must be flying.   

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.   
It was snowing   
And it was going to snow.   
The blackbird sat   
In the cedar-limbs.

Birds of a Feather to present 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird art exhibit at Old Courthouse Museum May 26 through June 18

The exhibit includes paintings in oil, acrylic, and watercolor, assemblages, ceramic sculptures, collage, mixed media, pottery, and art journaling.

The art group Birds of a Feather came together after the Florida Artists Gallery closed in the year of Covid-19. The artists continued meeting weekly outdoors on each others’ porches, decks, and patios, to continue their creative endeavors while practicing social distancing.

The Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird exhibit is the first of the group’s joint exhibits.