Some paintings begin with a place. Others begin with a memory. This one began with a feeling.
For years, magpies have appeared in my work. They are common birds here in northern New Mexico, flashing black and white across fields, fence posts, and cottonwoods. They are intelligent, noisy, social creatures with a reputation for mischief and curiosity. They seem to know more than they are willing to tell us.
When I started A Rush of Wings, I wasn’t interested in painting a scientific illustration of magpies. I wanted to capture a moment that anyone who has spent time outdoors has experienced: the sudden eruption of birds into flight.
One second, everything is still. The next, the air is filled with movement.
A flock of birds lifts from the ground all at once, propelled by some invisible signal. Wings beat in rapid succession. Shadows overlap. Individual birds become part of a larger pattern. The eye struggles to follow them. What remains is not a clear image but an impression of motion, sound, and energy.
That fleeting instant became the subject of the painting.
The composition is built around movement rather than landscape. The horizon is reduced to a simple band of violet, separating earth from sky. The birds dominate the picture plane, their wings creating a rhythmic pattern that carries the eye around the canvas. Each bird is an individual shape, yet together they form a kind of visual conversation.
I often think of magpies as messengers. In folklore around the world, they appear as tricksters, omens, thieves, storytellers, and guides. Depending on where you live, seeing a magpie can signify good luck, bad luck, visitors, news, or change. Their symbolic meaning shifts from culture to culture, but they are rarely regarded as ordinary.
That ambiguity interests me.
In many ways, magpies remind me of ideas themselves. They arrive unexpectedly. They gather in groups. They chatter among themselves. They steal bits and pieces from different places and transform them into something new.
As a painter, I find myself doing much the same thing.
The painting also reflects my continuing interest in simplification. Over the years, I have become less concerned with rendering every detail and more interested in creating an emotional response. The birds are recognizable as magpies, but they are reduced to bold shapes, strong contrasts, and expressive marks. Their forms are simplified enough to allow movement and gesture to take precedence.
The color palette plays an important role in that effort. The cool blue-violet sky creates a sense of openness and atmosphere, while the warm earth tones below provide balance and grounding. The contrast between the two establishes a stage on which the birds can perform their aerial dance.
Texture is equally important. Thick passages of oil paint catch and reflect light across the surface, adding another layer of motion. As viewers move in front of the painting, the marks reveal themselves differently. The surface becomes active, reinforcing the sensation of movement already present in the composition.
The title came later.
As I looked at the completed work, I kept returning to the sound of birds taking flight. Not the individual flap of a wing, but the collective rush created when several birds launch into the air together. It is a sound that lasts only a moment, yet it is unmistakable.
A Rush of Wings seemed to capture that experience.
Ultimately, the painting is less about birds than it is about transition. It occupies the space between stillness and movement, between earth and sky, between the ordinary and the unexpected. It celebrates one of those brief moments that often pass unnoticed but remain lodged in memory long afterward.
Perhaps that is why I continue returning to magpies.
They remind me to pay attention.
They remind me that even the most familiar landscape can suddenly come alive.