In first looking at Kristin Schnell‘s stunning ode to the natural world, told through color, form, and bird, it took me a minute to understand the process of creating art in collaboration with a living creature. Inspired by the beauty of stained glass windows she experienced as a child in church windows, she developed a sensitivity to the movement of the sun, the changing color casts, and ideas of chance and spirituality. Her work is, in fact, an altar of sorts, devoted to the beauty and fragility of the avian world, accompanied by colorful sets that she builds and paints herself.  As she states, “Chance determines my life, just as chance determines my pictures. the photos were created in real-time and not constructed on the computer.

-Aline smithson / lenscratch