New Edition: In Loving Memory of the Carolina Parakeet

This five color screen print is a tribute to the extinct Carolina Parakeet, Conuropsis Carolinensis, who once built nests in old growth forests along the Mississippi River. The print is 11.5 " x 15" and printed in vivid cyans, golds, magentas, and emeralds on cream card stock archival paper.

With bright greens and gold feathers, they thrived in a wide geographic range, from the swamps along the Gulf of Mexico up through the eastern seaboard. I like to imagine them flitting along the seashore of New York and filling the marshes around New Orleans with riotous squawks and electric colors. They consumed vast quantities of cocklebur seeds, which were poisonous, and they were most likely poisonous themselves. There were records of them poisoning the cats of settlers. Fabulous and fierce, they still went extinct by 1939.

They remind me of the bright green Monk Parakeets, originally from Argentina, who arrived in New Orleans in flocks after Hurricane Katrina. Some say they were the first wildlife to return to the city after the waters receded, their bright colors and joyous cries, as an echo of the Carolina Parakeet.  

How do we honor what is lost? How do we remember those who have gone, while holding space for the present, and the current flood of extinctions we are facing?

This is the second edition of this print. I wanted to make a few tweaks and shifted to a new cream paper. The print has an extra pink layer, and so is now a five color print. I originally created these design for the In Loving Memory Portfolio organized by Anna Tararova. I liked these so much I wanted to print a new edition.