bluebird of (community) happiness
At the beginning of April, 2020, in the early days of Covid, after many of us had been sent home from our work and schools, a friend said that she was tired of looking at the dead wreath on the front of the Town Offices in our village, and asked if I would make something to put in its place. I asked her for the wreath wire, stretched an old sheet over it, and painted this bluebird of (community) happiness. (I have a glazed ceramic bird on my wall made by my grandmother, Laura Popenoe, called “Bluebird of Happiness.”)
Friends helped me install it, guerrilla-style, by dark of night…
…and there it was, by light of day.
My clever mother proposed making a sticker from the image. She sent me a print file and I had a bunch made, distributed them around town, and mailed some around the country.
Strangely, the artwork found its way into Bluebird, the journal of the North American Bluebird Society.
When the days grew short, and the nights long, I ordered some solar lights, and my long-legged friend helped me install them…
…so the bluebird would sparkle in the dark.
The next summer, other friends made a stencil of the image, and it appeared on cars, sidewalks, and posters around the area.
If you would like stickers for your community, download a print-ready file below for round 2.5” stickers of this image. You are welcome to use this file, unmodified, to print stickers for non-commercial purposes. Online services such as UPrinting, NextDayFlyers, or your favorite local sticker-printing place, can also modify the file to print 2” stickers.