One of the birds. (Michael McKinney)
Each year, approximately one billion birds in the United States die after flying into glass windows and doors. Holly Greenberg, a printmaker and painter based in Illinois, wants to change that, one hand-made bird at a time. To do that, Greenberg has worked with artists and communities across the country.
Layl McDill, co-owner of Clay Squared, 699 Lowry St. NE, is one such artist.
“Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene,” Greenberg’s project, is both straightforward and ambitious. In 2023, 10,836 birds died in Chicago after colliding with glass; in response, Greenberg wants to create that same number of fabric birds.
McDill heard about the project from Colossal, a contemporary art magazine, and reached out to Greenberg to get involved.
“I’ll show you one of the finished ones,” McDill said, holding a black, blue and yellow fabric bird in her hand. The fabric-and-cloth creation is meant to evoke the Yellow-rumped Warbler, a bird that passes through Minnesota during its biannual migration.
“They’re all based on certain birds, and everybody has their own take on it,” she continued. “Most of them are fabric… It’s so cool, all the different ways people are making them. Sometimes, they’re wrapping them, and sometimes they’re gluing them on.”
According to Greenberg’s website, once the project’s 10,000-plus birds are completed, they will be sewn together into a 300-foot-long “carpet” of birds, acting as an educational art installation “about the toll of building collisions on our bird populations.” The project is currently estimated to be completed in 2029. So far, 3,559 — roughly one-third — of the birds have been crafted.
McDill has been filling a cardboard box with birds,which have taken on another meaning.
“It’s about how important they are to the whole ecosystem,” she explained. “If you’re going to talk about what it is important for humans, we need them to eat the bugs that we don’t want… They are just a huge part of this whole ecosystem.”
In her studio, McDill had a stack of papers outlining “bird collision prevention measures”: dots, paint and other tools meant to help birds identify and avoid glass. Birds either see reflections or think there is nothing there — the patterns, barely visible to humans, make the glass appear solid.
There were also two art pieces featuring birds. One, a small tower of painted furniture, had birds in its nooks and crannies. The other, a birdcage filled with trinkets, had an oversized fabric crow sitting on top.
McDill estimated that she had “probably 40” birds ready to go to Illinois, to drop them off at Greenberg’s headquarters. Many of those were made in a one-night event by Art to Change the World members and the public.
Each bird is “tagged” with its common name, the artist and the date it was made. They are also paired with information about its counterpart: Latin names, visual distinctions and their migration patterns.
To McDill, the project is a way to get involved with something they care about, to try out crafting or to learn about the ecosystem.
“People make a lot of crafts,” she said. “They’re like, ‘What do I do with this?’ This has that: It’s going to be part of a bigger piece.”