My son and I have been reading Neil Gaiman’s new novelization of Norse Mythology, which includes glancing reference to Odin’s raven informants Huginn and Muninn. It reminded me of this post from March 2011, which featured the artwork of raven-obsessed Yukon artist Nicole Bauberger. Ten years ago I asked Bauberger why she spent years on painstaking encaustic (hot wax) paintings of ravens–at least forty raven paintings in all–some of which now hang on my wall.
Why did this particular avian subject grab her? To the best of my decade-old memory, she told me the following:
“Looking at each other, the raven and I feel like equals. I can’t fly, but he can’t drive stick. And when I paint a raven, I don’t have to worry that I’m stealing his image, because I know it’s nothing he wouldn’t steal from me.”
I sent a couple of years in Bethel Alaska. Among the many things that might fascinate one there the ravens stand out and persist in my memory. They were the blackest black of any creature I’ve encountered. One male with a wingspan of a bit more than four feet learned to follow me for an occasional scrap of food.