Michigan Ice Storm 2025 – 2 Frostbound Aviary

A lattice of ice transforms an ordinary tree into ornament, every twig sleeved in glass, every berry jeweled. Threaded among this crystalline filigree, small birds arrive like warm punctuation—quiet embers of ochre and olive that kindle the composition. Their placements feel measured, as if the branches themselves were a musical staff and the flock its notation. The pared palette heightens texture: hard brilliance of frozen casing, soft down along the breast, matte bark anchoring the glitter. Architecture recedes to a gentle rhythm behind the arbor, echoing the image’s geometry while conceding the stage to nature’s precise theater. The work invites lingering: first for spectacle, then for the subtle pulse of life holding fast within winter’s clasp. It is a portrait of resilience and grace—an elegant equilibrium between fragility and poise, stillness and breath—captured at the exact moment when the world seems to pause and listen.