Smell the Sea and Feel the Sky

Hark, now hear the sailors cry,
Smell the sea, and feel the sky,
Let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic.
Van Morrison 

Our Hyacinth Macaw Parrot Princess Tara feeling the sea and sky at Seattle's Alki Beach:

She Was Not Quite What You Would Call Refined

Coming out Memorial Day weekend, 2018 in eBook and dead tree editions from Smashwords and Amazon! Book Four of the Princess Tara Chronicles, Part One of the Kālarātri, or Black Night Trilogy.

What do you do when you discover your parrot is a witch? A witch with a coffee addiction. And she needs your help to save your world from a goddess of war and her zombie army of the dead.

Our heroes, a couple of history professors, together with a coven of witches comprised of a pandemonium of parrots and one black cat, may finally have encountered a villain they simply can not defeat. How do you fight a goddess that controls death and time?

Dragons. Zombies. Cannibals. Pterodactyls. Coffee. Parrots and Witches. Can't wait? Get a sneak peek at Chapter One here. Enjoy!

Parrots and the Fallen Woman

Gustave Courbet - Woman with a Parrot - 1866

New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gustave Courbet was no stranger to controversy. He was a man of strong political views which occasionally erupted into activism, in particular during the revolutionary year of 1848 and the Commune in 1871. He was anti-intellectual, anti-clerical and anti-establishment and these socio-political opinions had an impact on the subject matter he chose to depict. All this gained him a reputation as a provocative firebrand but he nevertheless exhibited regularly at the Salon, protected by powerful patrons. At the 1849 Salon he was awarded a gold medal.

Critics found plenty to criticize when they were confronted by Woman with a Parrot at the 1866 Salon, complaining about the model’s ungainly pose and the artist’s lack of taste. The principal problem however was the blatant sexuality of the painting in which a young woman can be seen sprawled across a couch, her legs slightly splayed, the tresses of her luxuriant hair spread out against a disarranged white sheet, part of which has, perhaps fortuitously, entwined itself around her upper leg. Most of the sheet has become a tangled heap leading to questions in the mind of the viewer as to how this might have come about. The young woman is diverted by the eponymous parrot whose outstretched wings, revealing its striking plumage, echo the massed locks of her hair.

Why the parrot? As a result of some curious labyrinthine medieval logic (the call of some parrots was thought to resemble the word "Ave" used by the archangel Gabriel to greet Mary at the Annunciation) the parrot became one of the many attributes of the Virgin. By association the bird later came to be used as a secular companion to women. Their sumptuous and exotic appearance and provenance (and the consequent expense of acquiring one) enhanced their allusive use by some artists as a pointer to those qualities in the sitter. By the 18th century, a bird that had flown its cage came to be associated with a fallen woman. The parrot therefore came to embody both the exotic and the erotic.

The Mummy Macaw Parrots

This photo of supposedly 3,000 year old mummified Egyptian parrots has been making the rounds of social media including Facebook and Twitter.

Setting aside the nonsensical idea that South American parrots somehow found their way across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt three millennia ago, just to set the record straight, they are not 3,000 years old. They are not Egyptian. They are not even real parrots!

This photo illustrates a ten year old art installation by a Belgian artist named Eline 't Sant. A contemporary graphic designer and painter, she works mostly with mixed-media and assemblages. She frequently travels through the African and Asian continents which is reflected in her work.

The installation is kind of cool though. She imagines parrots as archaeological artifacts. She has photos of her art on her website:

http://www.elinetsant.be/

Just click on the Parrots link.

Coffee Parrot Dot Coffee

Our Hyacinth Macaw Parrot and Spokesmodel Princess Tara is pleased to announce the launch of her new website CoffeeParrotDotCoffee where her fans can purchase autographed copies of her very own fantasy novel series, the Princess Tara Chronicles, about a parrot that just happens to be a witch, directly from her. Princess Tara also will have available 100% parrot friendly coffee beans roasted to order, and other unique parrotphernalia. Drop in for a visit! We hope to see you there.

With every book purchased, Princess Tara will include one of her flight feathers, which makes for a terrific bookmark.

Wearing Of the Green

There's green under all that blue. Happy Saint Patrick's Day from our Hyacinth Macaw Parrot Princess Tara!

Parrot Masks

In 2003 Seattle's old Parrot Cafe commissioned Seattle artist Michael McMullin to create three paper-mache and acrylic masks of the resident parrots. The masks measure approximately six inches wide by eight and one-half inches tall.

Hyacinth Macaw Parrot Princess Tara

Blue and Gold Macaw Parrot Bubba

Greenwing Macaw Parrot Roxanne