For as long as Tony Fitzpatrick can remember, he’s been preoccupied with birds. He blames his grandmother (a loyal staffer in Cook County assessor P.J. Cullerton’s notoriously corrupt office in the 60s), who made a habit of feeding feathered flocks. “Shut up and listen,” she’d tell young Tony. “For a piece of bread you can hear God sing.” The artist’s earliest drawings were of naked women and birds; sometimes he’d cap nude torsos with avian heads.
“The Secret Birds” is Fitzpatrick’s swan song before he flies south to New Orleans to enroll in classes at UNO and Tulane. He’ll study natural history and (naturally) ornithology. “I’ve done a good job making art about birds, but I’ve realized I don’t know as much as I should,” the 55-year-old says. “I’m going to be the world’s oldest, ugliest college freshman.”
Tue 7/1-9/12 Poetry Foundation 61 W. Superior 312-787-7070poetryfoundation.org
