Aetherography – The Parklander Journal – Connecting you to our neighborhood

New artwork kind captures the magnificence of birds

Coral Springs resident Meir Martin is the creator of “aetherography”—an artwork kind that transcends pictures to seize time, movement, and the rhythm of nature by birds. By fusing collectively lots of of photographs of particular person birds into one large-scale picture, Martin reimagines nature not as a frozen second, however as an unfolding expertise.

“It is the art of layering time,” explains Martin. “Where photography isolates, aetherography gathers. Where photography freezes, aetherography flows. And what it reveals is the truth of life as it actually happened: chaotic, abundant, overwhelming, and magnificent.”

Martin—who admittedly spends a minimum of 340 days per 12 months taking photographs of birds within the Everglades every morning—has amassed a group of about 1.5 million photographs. “Everything in my life is birds, birds, birds. I’m addicted to it, and there’s no cure,” he jokes. With such an intensive library to type by, it typically takes him years to finish sure items, which comprise lots of of chicken photographs. “I keep looking until I find the image that will fit.”

Walking into Martin’s house, which he transformed into his gallery after his spouse’s passing, is a surreal expertise that pulls you deep into the imaginative and prescient of an impassioned creator. Every floor—from the ceilings to the home windows and shortly the flooring—is roofed with art work, each bit set in a customized wooden body that Martin makes himself.

Before birds turned his calling, Martin, born in Israel, started his profession primarily as a marriage photographer. But someday, when a person walked into his retailer asking for a digicam with a 400-millimeter lens, Martin’s trajectory modified. Sick of the pictures he was doing, he joined the person on a subject journey and fell in love with photographing birds.

Martin spent the early Eighties photographing desert birds in Israel. In 1983, whereas on a visit to the Dead Sea, he turned the primary particular person to take a coloration {photograph} of a pair of desert tawny owls, and in 1986, he revealed a e book, “Desert Birds of Israel.”

“Israel is one of the most amazing places in the world for birding,” says Martin. “Nobody knew that until I published a book in 1986. In America, you have only three species of eagles. In Israel, which is the size of New Jersey, we have about 12.”

After transferring to Florida together with his spouse, Martin took a break from pictures and—an innate creator—invented a brand new system to scrub pet urine from oriental rugs. In 2008, after an opportunity encounter with a person at a canine park whereas strolling his 172-pound Neopolitan Mastiff, he was drawn again into pictures, becoming a member of a digicam membership.

“I went to the club, and everyone was taking regular pictures,” remembers Martin. “The digital camera came to the world, and everyone is taking pictures. My pictures would just be one of them. This is not what I want. This is not my style. I have to find something else.”

There was a contest within the membership each Thursday to see who had taken the most effective photograph that week. The first time Martin entered, his photograph didn’t garner a lot consideration. But the second time he did, the members took discover. Using Photoshop, he had mixed pictures from a number of pictures he had taken, to create one thing totally different.

While Martin’s work obtained consideration, acceptance was a distinct story. “The guy from the photography club said we are photographers and this is not photography. They didn’t accept it, so I left the club,” he says.

After leaving, Martin devoted himself absolutely to this rising artwork kind, and aetherography was born. “I’m the first one in the world making this new artwork,” he says—an assertion he helps by in depth analysis, together with using ChatGPT, seeking something resembling aetherography throughout the globe.

That sense of originality extends past approach into which means. Each piece carries its personal narrative, one Martin eagerly brings to life when he speaks about his work. “Everything that you do, you have to have a story,” he says. “What is the image for? What is the artwork for?”

Recently, he started the months-long software course of to show his house from a gallery right into a museum. “This house will now become the Aetherography Museum,” enthuses Martin, who needs folks to have the ability to expertise this new artwork kind in particular person.

While he needs to share his work and his tales with the general public, he’s nonetheless not sure about promoting his items. “Right now I don’t sell any artwork. It’s mine, I love it,” explains Martin. “When I open the museum, it’s probably going to be different.”

Martin is at the moment engaged on a chunk to honor the anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School capturing. He was throughout the road from the varsity that day and heard the gunfire. The art work, which might be featured within the February problem of the Parklander, features a golden eagle from {a photograph} he took in Israel within the Eighties. Above the eagle are 17 birds, every representing the 17 victims of the capturing. “This is a very powerful image with a lot of history in it,” says Martin, who’s prepared to donate the piece to the highschool.

For extra info, go to www.meirmartin.com.