We don’t have a television at home, so I didn’t know about Portandia until a friend sent me a link for the “Put a Bird on It” sketch. (thanks, beth e.)
Like most people who see the sketch for the first time, I enjoyed the subtle sense of superiority I felt over all those pour souls lost in the spinning vortex of random bird application, and I snickered accordingly.
You can find many bird junkies hawking their wares on Etsy.com. (Yes, totally intended.)
As you will see below, (and as the Portlandia sketch points out), there is virtually nothing on earth that wouldn’t look better with a bird on it.
Clearly, on Etsy, as in Portland, birds are very hot. It’s harmless and cute, not hurting anyone. But imagine my horror when the 2012 gift shop merchandise catalogs started coming out this January, and, in flipping through them, I saw hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages full of random bird stuff. This season birds are for sale in every size, shape and color. Birds on dinner plates. Birds on bookends. Birds as salt and pepper shakers. “Put a bird on it” is going mainstream, folks. Birds are about to become a much bigger part of your shopping experiences.
Case in point, here’s Walmart’s version:
Thank goodness we, at Stomping Grounds, are too busy putting grapes on things to worry much about this ornithological madness. Our plan was to keep our heads tucked under our wings for the next five to ten years until this bird thing flies over. (See what I did there?)
With birds cleared from our minds we started working on our own Spring lines. I got really excited about doing a line centered around the word, “Simplify.” I decided to match the word with a calming and anchored silhouette of a tree. Sleek. Peaceful. Understated.
While it’s no problem for me to think up ideas for the store, I’m not very good at execution. So James got going on making the Simplify concept a reality by taking a photograph of a tree-like jewelry stand we have in the store, then photoshopping the heck out of it to create a silvery tree form for use in the Simplify line. After he finished the tree, he felt that something was missing, so he added a bright red apple and called me over to take a look.
“The line is called, ‘Simplify,’ Jimmy, not ‘Original Sin.’ It’s not working.”
So he pulled the apple, but I could see he was right. Without it, the tree image looked too cold and stark. It needed something. It needed a…
bird.
I turn pale. Sweating, pacing and lip biting ensues. This is it, I think. This is the moment in the story when the dark side tempts us. If we put a bird on it we become total sell-outs.
Whatever! says I, in exasperation. I don’t care if we are putting a bird on it. It needs a bird. Not using a bird here would be like not listening to Abbey Road because too many people like the Beatles.
So we took a sweet little bird from a 19th century children’s book, colored it blue, and perched it in the tree.
And Voila! Allow us to introduce you to Simplify:
James printed it, framed it. We both smiled at it. I took a picture of it, posted it to the Stomping Grounds Facebook page, and waited for your approval to start rolling in. Not long after I got my first comment on the post. The writer said, simply,
“Put a bird on it.”
AHHHHHHHHH.
The cruel fact that we might totally deserve that was so very painful. Couldn’t you please tell me our bird is different? Ours is actually in a tree, after all. Doesn’t that count for something? We have to be allowed a bird now and then. I mean, we never use birds…
Except, of course, for here:
And here:
And, oh god, here:
Clearly, some soul searching was in order.
(I will skip ahead of the next bleak, dark days wherein I questioned everything I had ever thought true and good.)
Finally, I sought council from James, the Buddha figure of our household.
“Jimmy, what do you think about us putting birds on stuff?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t think it’s a problem for us to be putting birds on stuff?”
“We put lots of stuff on stuff.”
“So you don’t think I need to worry about it?”
“Not unless you want to.”
Hmmm. James’ tricky “sound of one hand clapping” type of wisdom often mystifies me. But, in the end, I realized the answer was actually in the art. The original goal of creating this line was to send a reminder: Simplify. I did an excellent job of not hearing my own message and, instead, waaaaay overanalyzing the very simple idea of putting a bird in a tree. For some, “Simplify” might mean not taking on too many tasks. For others it might mean cleaning house, mentally or physically. For me, this piece of art is most useful as a reminder not to get too worried about stuff that really isn’t that big a deal. I took the long way around, but, in the end, all I needed to do in order to “Simplify” was to put a bird on it. Perfect.
