why did we stop having conversations with animals?
I’m writing about something a little different to my usual essays today. I’ve been thinking about the importance of sharing one’s true loves and passions (and sometimes obsessions), and to the question of our ancient and modern relationship to wild animals.
I have an abundance of creativity. I love to create and make and think. It’s a privilege that I take pretty seriously as an artist, and I always feel I owe it to myself, but also to whoever is out there, who might need me to make my idea real. You never know how something might connect with someone, or who it will connect with. I’ve had my fair share or moments in which the work of artists big or small have had huge impacts on my life.
I never would have thought that sharing my obsession and love for Heron would do much beyond tell everyone that I was a freak.
I’ve often connected with complete strangers while we both watch a motionless Heron from across a lake or pond. Small moments of acknowledgement that we are both here, right now, on Earth. Looking at Heron.
I realised that I have a duty to share the things I’m passionate about, to share how and why the things I care about connect me to the world, to the ideas, to other people and beings. Finding meaning comes naturally to me, and I’m aware that it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. There’s all kinds of forces at play that are moving to isolate us from one another. I want to bring people into my world, to give away pieces of it for them to enjoy. Heron has become one of the main vessels for that instinct.
Since this all began in 2024, and Heron seemed to come out of nowhere, we have been in regular conversation.
What does that mean? Hm. On a basic level, it means that something about this animal struck a chord with me. I’m still figuring out the why, although it’s less interesting to me. I just know that the conversation flows; I draw the bird, I see the bird in the wild, I watch just like heron watches. I hear a story forming, a voice in my thoughts. I see the slowness, the presence, the patience, the endurance, the strength, the awkwardness, the brutality and grace.
I am learning that every creature, human included, embodies all kinds of multitudes and contradictions. I quickly saw beyond the apparent elegance often associated with Heron, and I saw the ferocity in how it catches and swallows it’s prey. The awkwardness of it’s long limbs. (Perhaps I could also relate to the legs thing a little...)
There is so much to learn from observation of a wild creature, because undoubtedly, if you come back again and again, you’ll learn something new.
I’ve loved children's' books well beyond being a child myself, and since growing my collection, I’ve noticed that most children's’ books have an animal element. An animal presence, an animal friend, talking animals who speak with one another, who speak to us. It’s a necessary element in order to market anything to children at all, and yet it’s considered very juvenile for any audience beyond the age of 14 or 15. Everyone speaks with their dog or cat. Everyone understands the unspoken bond between human and animal. Cat memes and funny dog content rule the internet. I wonder what happens to this human instinct as we grow into adulthood, the need to be close to other sentient creatures of the world that don’t speak as we do.
I want to read more stories that centre a non-human animal perspective. I want to know how far we can stretch beyond our human empathy; and now more than ever I think it’s important we aim to do that, to check in with our humanity and our understanding of who and what is alive around us.
I love animals, and like most people I’ve never lived alongside them in the way we’ve evolved to do. I’m pretty sure my connection to plushies is linked to this somehow, to this lack of an animal presence. I think of our ancestors, who shaped wood and rock and bone to recreate the animals that their worlds revolved around, and I can’t help but see a love of plushies as a kind of modern equivalent of that appreciation.
As a kid I used to make my own plushies out of old clothes, strange, badly sewn, lumpy specimens, but because I had made them, they were special. It was my idea of that animal, my interpretation.
That’s what I’m going for here with this plushie project, to make real my own interpretation of Heron, to bring a small and cuddly piece of my world to you.
I've designed Heron, but I need 100 pledges by 1st may to get him into production!
There’s only 5 days left of this campaign, and you can pledge your support and share the link with anyone you think might enjoy a Heron with a headscarf!
The campaign runs until Thursday 1st May, 5pm (CET) and if we don’t reach 100 pledges, Heron plushie won’t get made!
I hope to be back with a full bodied essay very soon! I’ve already begun ☺️
Thank you for reading and I hope everyone’s having a lovely weekend!