Bristol Art

Brightly Colored Bird

Artist: Olivia Krall

Information: Created in 2022; measures 5 feet by 6 inches by 4 feet; weights 250 to 300 pounds; made of recycled metal and steel

Description: While not growing up in Elkhart County, Olivia spent a lot of time with her aunt and uncle who are bird watchers. She would join them while they were looking at local wildlife. This sculpture is her way of adding wildlife to the parks here. There are two key inspirations for this piece. First is Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi’s birds. While the style and materials of this piece are not like his, she was inspired by how he transformed his birds to be less realistic and more of suggestion of the subject material. The second inspiration comes from Olivia’s family, many of whom are avid bird watchers. Olivia has many fond memories of watching birds out the window with them and wanted to reflect that in this piece. She started welding the model for this piece without a strong direction or sense of what it would be. After talking with friends and looking through a book on sculpture artist Constantin Brancusi, she decided that the form that was created looked birdlike. From there she continued to make the shape more birdlike and used bright colors so that the piece would stand out.

About the artist: Olivia began sculpturing in May 2021 and quickly found a passion for working with scrap metal. She has always enjoyed art but never felt like any medium was the right fit until she started welding. The immediacy of welding and its ability to break the rules of other materials are the very reasons. Olivia is drawn to 3-D art. Finally, like many other artists, she finds that sculpture is a creative outlet that uses a different part of her brain.