Oystercatchergirl On A Mission

by Anne Hansen

I deviate from my occasional assignment of writing about other James Bay Art Walk artists, to toot my own horn here.

I last reported on my own art career in the Beacon in the spring of 2009. At the time, I wrote that after painting "Oystercatchers #100", I would "re-evaluate my subject matter ... and paint more oystercatchers."

True to my word, I have remained faithful to my mission, and have just completed "Oystercatchers #214". I can barely keep pace with the inspiration derived from the oystercatcher's habitat: the flowy seaweed in greens, browns and pinks, the pewter mountains, ultramarine ocean, lush foggy forests and log-strewn beaches. Who wouldn't be mesmerized by tidal species whose scientific names are asterina miniata, alaria marginata or laminaria saccharina?

To use some lyrics from a poem by Diane Ackerman, if I were to "offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature" or a "messenger of wonder", what better candidate is there than the oystercatcher to help with my task?

It is often surprising that some people - even natives to Victoria -- are unfamiliar with oystercatchers, given their noisy, consistent presence in our midst.

Allow me, then, to introduce the black oystercatcher - a unique species of shorebird, if not an "institution" on Victoria's rocky headlands. The oystercatcher is a fascination among nature-lovers, beachcombers, kayakers and tourists alike.

With a crow-sized black body, long flesh-colored legs, and black pupils ringed in red and yellow, the oystercatcher forages comically at the tideline for shelled creatures, particularly limpets. This bird should rightly be called "limpetcatcher," although they don't turn up their nose at the occasional oyster.

In an interview on CBC Radio's North By Northwest, I noted that although there are many west coast artists painting beautiful pictures of whales, bears, eagles and herons, who else is fixated with oystercatchers?

A trip to Haida Gwaii last summer added further fuel to my creative oystercatcher bonfire. I returned from those misty isles with memories and photographs that continue to tide me along in My Body of Oystercatchers art series.

Every year, the Haida Gwaii-based Laskeek Bay Conservation Society offers outdoorsy volunteers an opportunity to help biologists for week-long camp duty during their field season in May and June. Naturally, I lobbied to hang out with the oystercatchers, a species they've been studying for years.

I later learned that one of their subsequent biology crews spotted an oystercatcher that they had banded in 1994. Long live the oystercatcher!

However, in common with all seashore creatures, oystercatcher habitat is threatened by rampant clear-cutting, luxury tourist development, our oil addiction, and fish farming.

In May 2010, a friend and I each carried one of my oystercatcher paintings on the last leg of the "Get Out Migration", a 30-kilometre hike from Sidney to Victoria, to protest open-pen fish farming on the BC coast. This historic event, organized by biologist extraordinaire Alexandra Morton, was attended by thousands.

My Body of Oystercatchers will migrate back to Sidney, for a show at the Tulista Centre of the Community Arts Council of the Saanich Peninsula, from November 10^th to December 4^th. You can also find my oystercatcher art periodically on display at the Oak Bay Library and James Bay Coffee and Books.