DRAYTON, N.D. -- Linda Merrill uses the plumage of pheasants to create birds of another feather.
Merrill, the owner of Framed Nature in Drayton, makes artwork, including pictures, pins and hair accessories from pheasant feathers. She began working with feathers about five years ago after she decided they would create longer lasting artwork than the flowers she had previously used in her Framed Nature business.
Framed Nature
Merrill, a Drayton Public School biology and science teacher started Framed Nature in 2001 after pressing flowers for a class project. She assigned students the project, which involved collecting 50 plants and identifying them by their scientific names, and figured she should get involved in it, too.
"I'd collect the plants and mount them on a big, white board." Merrill displayed the board at parent-teacher conferences, where one of the parents asked her if she could make her a pressed flower print.
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Merrill did. She made flower prints for a few years, and then decided that she wanted to explore using something else in her prints. It was difficult to find perfect flowers and when she did, some of them quickly faded, she said.
She got the idea for using the pheasants after her husband, an upland game hunter, cleaned a bird and showed her a piece of skin with feathers attached. It occurred to Merrill that they might lend themselves to framing.
Plumage
"The feathers don't fade. They're geometrically perfect." However, Merrill's artwork isn't necessarily symmetrical. She prefers using a free-style approach to her art, laying the feathers on a table and playing with them until a pattern emerges.
"You've got to be in the mood to make pictures or you're just pushing feathers around... I'm always looking for something new to make." One of her favorite pieces of art that she created is an eagle she made from black feathers during the holidays in 2010.
Before she started working with items from nature, Merrill did craftwork, such as knitting and crocheting.
"I've always had to do something."
Only natural
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Merrill, a former farm girl, enjoys working with the feathers because they were from a creature that was part of nature.
"Just taking things something that somebody was going to throw away and using it."
She doesn't kill any birds for their feathers, but uses the plumage of dead birds that people give her.
Pheasant feathers, which are variations of blue, green, caramel and butterscotch, lend themselves well to farmed art, she said.
"You've got a variety to work with, depending on what effect you're seeking." She uses the feathers of pheasants that a local farmer raises.
"I get the skin and feathers, he gets the meat. I'm happy. He's happy," she said, with a smile.
Merrill sells her artwork during the summer at the Townsquare Farmers Market in Grand Forks during the summer and fall, at area craft shows and at the Drayton Drug Store. Information on Framed Nature: Phone: (701) 454-3565 or email, linda.merrill48@yahoo.com
Reach Bailey at (701) 787-6753; (800) 477-6572, ext. 753; or send email to abailey@gfherald.com
