The Skull Field Drawings

By Lowell Darling

THERE IS A STORY behind the drawings in this book. It begins with a confession. I had hit a point where the art I needed to make had been made. Everything I had to say had been said. I was uninspired and went into exile, moving to the country, but I still maintained a studio. The studio was built on a former cattle ranch where the soil harbored an olfactory hint of its former inhabitants. On the hill beyond this perfumed pasture stood a remnant of Redwood forests that once covered West Sonoma County. I would sit in my new studio, looking out the windows, wondering what to do. Then one afternoon I decided to forget everything and take a walk, crossing the pasture and following the animal trails into the trees. The trail crossed two noisy creeks before leading into the forest, where the temperature dropped like entering a dark air-conditioned theatre. Upward and westward the trail meandered through hushed coolness. Silence made the forest seem empty. The only sounds were my feet stepping on leaves and breaking twigs. I had not yet learned to walk quietly and listen. Seldom had I felt more alone-not even when sailing across the ocean when young. As I walked out of the forest, however, back into the meadow, I discoverd I was not alone. Above my head circled a brilliant Red Tail Hawk, and not in silence did it fly. The sound of its wings broke the air when it dived at me, and I whistled shrilly in return-almost a scream of joy. The hawk's dive was so magnificent and thrilling, I longed for wings. From that day on, whenever I walked across the pasture, the Red Tail Hawk would join me. If the sky was empty when I left the studio, I could whistle and the Red Tail Hawk would come, circling above my head, calling back to me, diving like a feathered rocket. Some days the hawk came from the top of a tall dead Fir that stood on a neighboring hill. Sometimes it came from trees that grew between where I entered and exited the forest. Sometimes it came out of nowhere. Curiosity caused me to begin making small map-like sketches, drawn only to note from whence the hawk came. Eventually these rough sketches led me to a dead tree fallen across my trail, deep in the forest. Above this fallen log, high in the trees, I saw a nest. I could only assume this nest was the reason for the Red Tail's aggressive behavior, and I didn't linger. I, too, was a protective first-time parent.Days later, perhaps a few weeks after I began drawing again, I saw the white hawk take its first flight with its mother. At first it crashed noisily through the branches, crash landing next to my trail, not twenty feet from where I stood. I could hear its parents calling excitedly from above the foliage and hastened out of the trees into the open pasture where the nervous adults could see me. There I watched the drama unfold above my head, witnessing the first flight of the Red Tail chick. Now all three birds were circling my head. The new hawk flew like a clumsy puppy walks, or a newborn calf. For a few weeks all three hawks greeted me when I entered the pasture outside my studio. They performed their acrobatics above my head and called back when I whistled at them. Then suddenly they were gone. The nest was as empty as the sky. I knew that by autumn their nest would be taken over by owls.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1499354037
• ISBN13: 9781499354034
• Release Date: May 2014
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.6" x 7.0"