Variation of Orders

My current favourite song 'Variation of Birds' has what I feel to be beautiful lyrics about the characteristic of our feathered friends as the name suggests. Though the song is not particularly easy to listen to for some people, I think this YouTube user summarized the feel of it very accurately!

'This is absolute genius. First birds sang, and man imitated. Then man built instruments to sing with him. Then, man built a synthesizer to make music without him. Then, the synthesizer built bird song. It isn't just bodies that evolve. When I listen to this album, I can see the evolution of art.'

So that there are three sorts of birds which use their wings
for more purposes than flying
the steamer as paddles the penguin as fins
and the ostrich spreads its plumes like sails to the breeze.

When I really think about the amount and variation of differences between the classes, orders, species and even sub species of animals it actually blows my mind a little. Adaptable to mother nature and in some cases so specifically so that they could not survive anywherelse on Earth, the more I learn the more humbled I am by such an abundance of life. I think some of these differences between creatures, such as Ungulates and the order of Carnivora, is really brought forward when there are no other distractions. In the work of Sharon Montrose, the photograph is simply the animal and nothing more, bringing out the individuality of this living thing and when compared to other photos from the collection turns into a study of the variation I mentioned before. Not only this but stripping the animals of their natural surroundings, or of any surroundings at all really, highlights a sense of emotive innocence but also a sense of no defence as though they are dependent on this manmade world they've been placed in. Feathers, flippers, beaks, stripes, pouches, claws, antlers, scales and fur, I find it so necessary not only to my work as an artist but also a necessity to human life.