Owls have fascinated us for millennium. Many different cultures across various regions of the world have bestowed symbolic meaning upon owls, seeing them as keepers of wisdom, protectors of the dead, and guardians of the underworld.

My first encounter with an owl was ethereal. I was walking at midnight across the large driveway to my studio. I was sculpting a woman’s bust that night and not really sure yet what direction I would go with her. I was just reaching the edge of light cast by a street lamp and I felt the oddest movement and soft caress on the side of my head, and then a ghostly white shape was gliding past and in front of me, seeming to simply float in perfect silence before sweeping up in front of my studio and then into the darkness. A barn owl had flown right past my head, it’s feather tips barely touching my hair without even the softest sound. These words  immediately came to mind –

Ethereal beings, swept away
Into the starlight, streaming
Become celestial, in every way
Into the heavens, sweetly dreaming

That night I sculpted that beautiful owl to sit on the woman’s shoulder and have just recently sculpted the owl on it’s own, perched on a smooth and twisting bronze branch. I am deeply inspired to sculpt birds and the graceful barn owl will always hold a special place in my heart.