Hens, eggs and quiet activism.

"Next Thing You Know, Someone Will Want To
​Marry a Chicken."

It's been a few years since Maine legalized gay marriage, but a comment I had heard from a neighbor struck me...
"Next thing you know, someone will want to marry a chicken."
There are moments when I like to remain polite and neutral with neighbors and townsfolk and keep my mouth shut and respond instead quietly with art.

I had sketched the chicken wedding immediately after hearing the comment, the image then disappeared into the piles of sketchbooks full of assorted other artistic responses.
I pulled it out this month to turn it into a painting.

Next Thing You Know Someone Will Want to Marry a Chicken - 2016 - 22"X28"

Last year, I started keeping chickens, and I'm fully understanding of the appeal now…they are much kinder and gentler (and more forgiving) than most humans…
how lovely a chicken wedding would be! 
I'm finding the hens much prefer the company of other hens rather than spending time with me.  Perhaps I could lure them into my world with poppy seed bagels, they seem to love those very much…

Spork - one of the hens I keep for egg laying (and friendship) - photograph ©2015 Erin Thomas

A friend (a chicken expert) says that the little black dot poppy seeds trigger the instinct to peck, that the bagel-relationship is even less deep than my perceived connection with them….
​
I still love them more than my same-sex-marriage-hating neighbor.

As you can see from the collection of images below (and above) ….the chickens are providing unlimited inspiration (and supplies) for me this year….Thank you Hens!  For now, I'll keep my human husband and take the amusement, inspiration and free eggs from my new hen friends. 

I filled eggs with paint to create images to add to my environmental photographic series "Battlefield".  Battlefield page click here
The fact that most of that experiment was a messy disaster is a testament to just how fragile the eggs (and life) is here on our planet. (and how hard it is to get acrylic out of new jeans)
I may revisit the paint-filled eggs in the summer when I can make outdoor messes.

As I sketched the hens, more and more they became… leaves...earth…a source of life.  The ink sketch "Two Hens" below was extracted from my sketchbook and put into illustrator cs6 so I am able to have prints made this year.  I love how they and their shadows look much like leaves coming off a branch.
Creating the image as a vector file allows me to print the image at any size, if you'd like a signed print of Two Hens,
please email me here!
The prints of two hens below will be produced local at Portsmouth Print with love :)

Two Hens - 2016 ink sketch - vector illustration - unlimited size

"Next Thing You Know,
Someone Will Want to Marry a Chicken"
is not currently available as a print.
​
Original painting will be going up for sale this spring, contact me via email for first refusal requests.