Eugene updates me on the mural progress while I’m away filming. He takes our dog Jojo for his afternoon walk around to the place where an artist named Dan has been filling the building’s recently renovated retaining wall with a pattern of geometric birds. The mural was commissioned in collaboration with the Audubon Mural Project by our board in honor of our friend and longtime resident Sandra who passed two year ago from cancer. She was an artist—a gilder—and one of the most vibrant members of our little community who was always the first to organize building holiday parties and summer socials in the garden. The plan for this mural had been in the works for a while; after months of delays, I was surprised to hear it had finally started in earnest. I ask how it looks and Eugene sends photos, blurry because Jojo is pulling on his leash and because taking photos is merely logistical to him. A visual transfer of information. It’s: which of these shampoos should I buy? It’s: which looks better with these pants—the gray sweater or the navy?
I look at these on the ride home from work, sitting in the passenger seat of a car being driven down dark rural Tennessee roads by a PA named Claire. The brightness on my phone is too high and the colors fill the car with light. I’m exhausted because I’m stretched beyond my limit this month, but looking at the photos I feel a pang of disappointment. A sign-up sheet in my building lobby had been asking for volunteers to help paint and I’d wanted to sign up. I wanted to take part in this community art.
Our neighborhood is filled with these bird murals, which are part of a long-term art project that I admittedly don’t know as much about as I should by this point. “The Audubon guy lived around here” I explain when visiting friends ask about the giant birds on walls and garage doors and rolling store shutters. “He’s buried in the cemetery at the corner of my block.” My knowledge about this is very vague, caught from bits of information I’ve read here and there—I know Audubon’s legacy is “complicated” (read: racist) and that education about this is part of the project. I know the murals are done by a variety of local artists who each work in their own individual style, but that each mural features an actual species of bird. The quality varies. Some are majestic. Some are playful. Some are a little wonky. A handful are, frankly, hideous.
I have my favorites—a blue jay rising over a 99-cent store on 151st by the artists Mary Lacy. A pair of chunky orange and yellow warblers near the 157th subway by George Boorujy, and a mosaic-sculpture hybrid by Jessica Maffia on 173rd made of foraged-glass mosaics that spell out the American robin birdsong in the form of a spectrogram. The mosaics are tucked between a v-formation of six outstretched cast hand sculptures in a shade of brilliant robin’s egg blue. In the 15 years I’ve lived in this neighborhood, these birds have become parts of my day; surprises to wonder about while running errands, walking the dog, visiting friends, sitting in traffic. A sixth story flock of birds covers an entire building facade at the light where my Uber usually turns off the main avenue toward my block. When I see them after a long day I mentally start to relax knowing it won’t be long before shoes off, bra off, a snack, the couch.