“The Light Where She Landed”
2608 Sullivant Ave, Columbus, OH 43204
Luka Weinberger
Backstory
“This piece in some ways is a love letter to Columbus and to nature. Every part of this piece references Columbus and Ohio: the song sparrow, indigo bunting, sandhill crane, the car, the forest, even the model are from here. I am telling a story that many of us can resonate with, and that’s the feeling of finding home in a place far from where you were born.
The young woman depicted was driving through the woods one day, and her car broke down. At first she panicked. However, when she stepped out and looked around, she saw the sun through the trees. She felt the soft grass. She watched the fireflies dance. She heard the birds singing. Where she came from had neglected her, silenced her, and pushed her to the margins. The noise was so deafening that she couldn’t even hear her own self. But here, she felt peace and oneness with her surroundings that was never possible before. This beautiful place could sustain her and nourish her, and she could find real purpose for her life by living here instead, and learning how to help the birds rebuild their dying population.
If you look next to the car, there are feathers growing out of a tire like cacti. I had this vision of a world where we could propagate feathers like plants and grow bird eggs in trees to help save endangered species. This is the first in a series of murals that feature endangered animals in the region, and ways that we can help.”
— Luka Weinberger, Muralist
Conservation
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Song Sparrow
Very widespread in North America, this melodious sparrow is among the most familiar birds in some areas, such as the Northeast and Midwest. At times it is rather skulking in behavior, hiding in the thickets, seen only when it flies from bush to bush with a typical pumping motion of its tail. Usually, however, sheer numbers make it conspicuous. Song Sparrows vary in appearance over their wide range, from large dark birds on the Aleutians to small pale ones in the desert Southwest.
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Indigo Bunting
In parts of the East, Indigo Bunting may be the most abundant songbird, with the deep-blue males singing along every roadside. The plain brown females are seen far less often, and they have good reason to be inconspicuous: they do almost all the work of caring for the eggs and young, hidden away in dense thickets. This species favors brushy edges rather than unbroken forest, and is probably far more common today than when the Pilgrims landed.
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Sandhill Crane
Found in several scattered areas of North America, Sandhill Cranes reach their peak abundance at migratory stopover points on the Great Plains. The early spring gathering of Sandhills on the Platte River in Nebraska is among the greatest wildlife spectacles on the continent, with over a quarter of a million birds present at one time. Although they are currently very common, their dependence on key stopover sites makes them vulnerable to loss of habitat in the future.
Resources
Acknowledgments
“For this piece, I consulted with Kenn Kaufman, who is one of the most prestigious ornithologists in the country as well as an Ohioan. My most sincere gratitude to him for his time and knowledge! Thanks as well to Danny Peterson for taking a walk through the park with me to discuss this venture, and the whole Summer Jam West family for thinking of me for this project and volunteering your time. Thanks, as well, to Lucie Shearer, Ash Pierce, April Sunami, and Ariel Peguero for being such inspiring instructors and artists, and showing me what is possible in Columbus when you are determined to make something new. Thank you to Jackson and TJ at Sherwin-Williams for giving me so much help with the supplies and making sure I got what I needed during a nationwide shortage.
And finally, thank you to the students I mentored. You all took on a challenging task, painted larger than you ever have, and brought your own original ideas to life through art. This is something many artists doin’t do until halfway through art school, and you continually impressed me with your determination. We painted in the heat, in the rain, and you have me excited for the next generation of artists and of humans. I could not be prouder to be your mentor.”
— Luka Weinberger, Muralist