By Meghan E. Gattignolo
Here in Tennessee, we love our birds. Our state bird – the mockingbird – requires effort to love and often gets a bad reputation. Watching them, though, you have to admire their tenacity and clever ability to adapt to changes in their environment. However, today it’s easy to worry that our local bird diversity might be in trouble. As more native trees are cut down to make room for more people, fewer habitats for our native bird populations are available.
Thankfully, not many Tennessee birds are currently listed as endangered. However, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency does maintain a list of bird species in need of conservation. The mockingbird isn’t one of them, but 36 other Tennessee birds are. Do you want to live in a world without black-capped chickadees, barn owls, or Eastern meadowlarks?
Orange-bellied Antwren, Alagoas Antwren by Kitty Harvill from Artists for Conservation, Silent Skies Mural.
Clarksville’s Kitty Harvill has several times been recognized by The Artists for Conservation and has won awards and special recognitions from them. Since 2009, she’s been a Signature Artist with this international group.
Kitty was the subject of a blog post last year, when she was featured in her own exhibit at the Museum. Kitty is an involved conservationist artist. Until recently, she lived in Brazil and painted endangered species for the Brazilian government to spread awareness and help educate people. Now, she leads her own conservation-minded group: ABUN – Artists & Biologists Unite for Nature.
The Silent Skies project was initiated in 2017 when AFC openly invited their member artists from all over the world to paint their favorite endangered bird species from a provided list. More than 160 AFC artists from 16 different countries eventually coordinated to create this stunning mural that highlights the 678 endangered bird species.
Silent Skies: A Traveling Mural selection from Artists for Conservation. Photo by Justin Kaicles.
Of course, our own Kitty Harvill also contributed four paintings to the mural. The birds she chose to paint for the project are birds native to Colombia, the country with the most varied populations of bird species in the world, and Brazil, the country Kitty called home for several years.
Are any of the birds represented in the mural native to Tennessee? Yes. The whooping crane is native to all of the American Southeast, Tennessee included, and has been on the endangered species list for some time. Artist Rob Butler captured the whooping crane in all its mournful splendor in 2017’s Grus americana, one of the original contributions to the mural.
In 2018, the record-breaking mural was the centerpiece of the 27th International Ornithological Congress. With the exception of a pandemic hiatus, the mural has been on tour around the world ever since.
Pseudastur occidentalis by Lyn Vik – Silent Skies: A Traveling Mural from Artists for Conservation.
While difficult, we know now that it is possible to save bird populations from extinction. Just ask the Eastern bluebird. Their population was on the decline for many decades due to increased use of pesticides and competition for nesting space with invasive species. A conservation initiative that began in the 1970s, involving building special bird boxes, brought the birds back from the brink of extinction, and human intervention saved a favorite songbird.
Curious about the other species of birds represented in the exhibit? You can search the mural for specific birds, or by artist, to get some background information on each one on the Artists for Conservation website. Also, you can listen to a haunting original musical score by Thomas Beckman accompanied by a beautiful slideshow of every artist’s work represented in the mural.
Silent Skies: A Traveling Mural from Artists for Conservation. Photo by Justin Kaicles.
Now until October 27th, glimpse this one-of-a-kind mural right here in the spacious Crouch Gallery of The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center and see Silent Skies: A Traveling Mural before it flutters off somewhere else!
This exhibition is sponsored in part by Jane and Michael O’Malley.
Meghan E. Gattignolo is a freelance writer and longtime Clarksville, TN resident. She loves to obsess about historical subjects and annoy her family daily with unsolicited random facts. Meghan holds a History B.A. from Austin Peay State University and lives in town with her husband and two children.