Centers of Gravity

As Terri Weifenbach observed varying bird activity in the back of her Washington D.C. studio, she captured highly charged movements in her characteristically delicate manner, interplaying with focal length and a range of natural colors.
Acclaimed American poet Matthew Dickman contributed to the artist book with an original postface:
A NOTE ON BEING ALONE AND THE BEATING OF WINGS
Sitting in the backyard at night is not like sitting in a government office waiting to see if you will receive the papers you need to join your family or sitting in a small room with neon lights while an TSA officer looks at your passport and asks what your name is and what your mother and father’s names are and asks if this man is your cousin or if this man is your cousin while other people walk around the airport free and upset at the long lines in front of the Starbucks. Loneliness knows if you are missing someone or feeling a little lost with how the night is acting or if your life is in danger, loneliness knows if you are being deported or just not wanting to go back inside and watch television. Back when the dark had some wind inside it I felt very alone. Back when we were just starting to learn to love each other within our new anger I would walk out to the backyard and sit and smoke cigarettes and wish you would come find me, come sit next to me. I like the sounds in the yard I can’t hear. The sound of a wing. Of just part of the wing lifted in the air or resting against the feathery sides of a bird. I don’t know the names of any birds but one: the one named shadows-shadows-shadows-shadows-across-the-cool-dark-grass. That one! Oh, don’t you want to be sitting alone in your backyard right now? Aren’t you like me? Don’t you want to be standing in the dark grass looking up into the sound of the sky and the dark small bodies flying over you? I am sitting alone right now. I’m punishing myself but also wondering about joy. Who’s going to sit next to me? I can hear the beating of wings all around my shoulders. It sounds like an ocean. It sounds like the beginning and the end of everything.

The portfolio is accompanied by a 106 page artist book including an original text by poet Matthew Dickman