Over the summer I attended my aunt and uncle’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. It was a fun time celebrating this amazing couple and reconnecting with awesome cousins. The food was amazing and the venue was beautiful. The party took place in the Grand Forks & District Art and Heritage Centre. This stunning heritage building used to be the town courthouse. Once we arrived into the room where we were going to be spending the evening, I immediately noticed an amazing, gorgeous fibre art installation of felted wool among other materials. 
I quickly grabbed my iPhone and took a few shots before the crowd arrived. I wish I had been able to take more time to really enjoy the full exhibit and study the materials she used. If you are at all in the area, I would strongly recommend checking it out. The exhibition is called Murmuration, and it’s created by Joanne Circle, below is her artist statement:
The dance of MURMURATION manifests celestial breath, and it is the breath that leads us to places.
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of birds spontaneously come together in flight creating an ephemeral form that soon breathes into another expanding form. In & out, in & out. The individual birds do not collide, all the while sensing their ever-changing relationships and air drafts.
NASA studies attribute this phenomenon of group flight without colliding to each bird’s awareness of 7 adjacent birds. So, within these large flocks, each bird is paying attention to the whereabouts of 7.
Imagine exercising this practice of paying attention to the position and welfare of 7 things, be they people, animals, plants, whatever. Notice the actual and sensed physical and mental space in between the chosen things. You become a murmuration. In & out, in & out.
The wings of MURMURATION carried the message, ‘Don’t edit, welcome movement and connect with gratitude in being part of the process.’
I became a MURMURATION. Thank you for coming; enjoy your murmur.
Joanne Circle
I love the social and environment message in Circle’s work. I think it’s a philosophy we could all look at adopting.
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