Several years ago, Dallas artist Cynthia Mulcahy was looking for places to observe fauna in action while she was working on War Garden, her ongoing body of work exploring American militarism through paintings of insects and birds of prey. She thought she might have to travel far afield. But armed with a cheap pair of binoculars, Mulcahy was shocked to find a world of wildlife right here at home.
The resulting sketches from her explorations became the basis for a public art project funded by a grant from the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Its most recent iteration is titled A Field Guide to Wild Fauna of Dallas, Texas, and copies are available for free on the fifth floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, when it opens back up.
You can’t go there now because of coronavirus, so here’s the next best thing: a sampling, with her commentary.
