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Thursday, October 4, 2018

Honoring Saint Francis AND Pica-John


Saint Francis of Assisi died 1,792 years ago yesterday, October the third, in the year 1226. According to records, he was forty-four  years old. Today, October 4th is his feast day. Among many things, he is often remembered as the patron saint of animals; especially birds.

I have a small statue of Saint Francis above my desk (seen in the image atop this entry where it is standing at the far left) to serve as an inspiration for me to persevere in my work to help others learn about the needs avian community through my book series, Words In Our Beak; as well as through any presentation I can make that is related to our feathered creatures.

Moreover Cam, my visiting cardinal, the protagonist in the book series named her eldest daughter, Frannie, to honor his memory. In volume one...

SEE PRESS RELEASE

...besides going into mother/daughter issues, within her story, Cam goes into detail as to how she happened to call her daughter Frannie. And as any mother can probably understand, Cam includes pictures of her daughter with her, with her playmates and by herself (all taken in my rooftop garden); they are similar to the ones directly below.

SCENCE FROM VOL ONE

SCENCE FROM VOL ONE

SCENCE FROM VOL ONE

Additionally, Cam named another one of her daughters Pica-John, which also is a way of paying homage to Saint Francis. Pica was his mother's name and she had wanted to name her son John — not Francis! 

As stated through Cam's voice in volume one, "... I have no photos of her, for she is even more camera-shy than her father, but I’ll tell you a backstory regarding how I chose her name, and the names of her siblings. I named my other daughter Pica-John, for Saint Francis of Assisi’s mother, Pica. I had not realized that Saint Francis’s mother had wanted to name her son John — not Francis — in honor of John the Baptist. It was Pica’s husband who wanted to name his son Francis. Pica’s husband’s reason for this was he had just returned from a successful business trip to France. 


This historical event was not lost on me since I am somewhat of an advocate for the rights of female birds. Up until now, I have not been able to do much for my feathered comrades’ rights, but I can in solidarity towards my gender, name my daughter, Pica-John."

Because of this daughter's aversion to the camera, I also had no pictures of Pica-John to include in volume one or volume two...

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... but Frannie was able to persuade Pica-John to allow her photograph to be included within volume three, as it is the last volume of the series, seen below, where Cam continues to be a cover girl.

SEE PRESS RELEASE

Additionally,  I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

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