Summerton’s new book, ‘Bird of the Devil’, came from a collection of postcards that he created by altering the images. In his words:

I found myself removing pages from the books and replicating the original painting style with gouache directly on to the book page.

This led to an invitation from the ET4U Artcentre in Denmark to show an exhibition of his work, an extension of his bird postcards. At this point, he began collecting more of the Ladybird bird books and altering the images with paint in a sort of collage methodology except with brush rather than knife. The installation was titled, ‘Bird of the Devil’, a play on the British Hammer House of Horror film, ‘Bride of the Devil’. This further inspired Summerton to add sound to the exhibit in the form of a recording of ‘reversed bird song’, parodying the satanic suggestion inherent in records played backward.

Fortunately for those of us not lucky enough to see the show, the ET4U Artcentre also agreed to turn this into a slender volume which contains those altered bird images from the exhibit. The images, however, are just a part of this book project. There is also text, accompanying each picture, contributed by a cast of writers, some established and some, whose primary medium is visual art or music.

Beyond the cover, with its captivating long-necked swan mutation on a windswept shore, the contents page listing the bird names was the first thing that suggested I notice it – bird names like, ‘Uphill Oystercatching Snipe, ‘Houdini Sparrow’, ‘Blood-Sucking Dunny Gull’, mixed in with the more conventional sounding, ‘Osprey’ and ‘Sentry Owl’. Flipping around randomly, I encountered a variety of image and text. The text for each also skewers those original bird descriptions – each more deadpan, twisted, poetic than the last. The first entry, ‘Panticle’ seems relatively normal looking but it is actually a Thrush’s head painted on top of a Peregrine Falcon’s body. The description includes:

Size: of a Mountain Hare in plantigrade posture.

Nest: materials normally include Twix wrappers, Shortbread foil and Asbestos when they can get it. The nest is usually situated in the grim chimneys of Northern social clubs…

Belief System: The Panticle family believe that before Dounreay and Charlie Parker, there was nothing.

Hard on the heels of this critter comes the ‘Blood-Sucking Dunny Gull’, featuring a perfectly normal adult bird flying over a most freakish young ‘un whose face is the stuff of nightmares. Laura Hird’s chilling description would have Alfred Hitchcock running for cover:

Their legs are pink, with lethal webbed talons. In place of a beak, it has extremely sharp, serrated thorn-like teeth with a red surround. It also has a small, horseshoe shaped-nostril the sole purpose of which is to intensify the pleasure when in contact with the blood of other birds.

Probably the funniest name of the lot: ‘Lady Amherst’s Lesser Big-eared Ring-necked Semi-collared Bar-headed Pink-footed Red-eyed Short-arsed Buff-bellied Fanny-tailed Ruddy-cheeked Needle-nobbed Trustafarian Bean Warbling Uphill Oystercatching Snipe’, shows a fairly normal looking bird, flying over a choppy sea, until you look closer and realize that the bird is carrying off, on its feet, a used condom. This is explained, in due time in Neil Mulholland’s description:

A keen environmentalist and advocate of free love, the specimen depicted here can be seen taking a condom back to its nest which it will share with its comrades during an orgy.

Summerton’s bird pictures are like nothing else and his subtle alterations conjure a setting, not quite of this world but of a place where Charles Darwin and Dr Moreau might’ve met and pursued an avian vision together. Headless creatures, birds that are part tree trunk and a variety of mutation, mixed with more normal looking members of the phylum, give the book a faux Audubon appearance until you really look at these buggers. And of course, the delightfully twisted text, an eagle like bird called, ‘The Golden Feathered Lover’, described thusly by someone known only as The Lonely Piper:

A vertiginous Adonis, with a medallion of venison inside, digesting. An ever so dry-witted dram drinker with a Highlanders predilection for an after dinner grouse, he is quite often too drunk to fly; oft risking a misguided swipe from a shepherd’s biased staff.

This is a great piece of work and Summerton has truly struck some sort of Faustian bargain in the process, his creations, the stuff of fever dreams. I worry for him, should he continue to holiday in the Summer Isles.

‘Come, Edward. It’s time to keep your appointment with the wickerman.’

Marc Goldin currently lives in Chicago, with three cats, each one more long-haired than the last. Interests have ranged from medieval monasticism to discontinued stations on the London Underground – literary likes too diverse (some would say schizo) to list here although the last several years have been witness to an intimacy with Scottish and Irish literature. American Southern and Beat era lit also account for some of the ‘missing years’. Music tastes run the gamut from Cuban Danzon to Ska (all three waves but having a specific attachment to the second, two-tone period) to the Tuvan throat singers. Has written book reviews for a now defunct Irish literature site and has several short stories in various stages of development. Mad for black and white photography and aspires to someday have a complete collection of photos documenting every close in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Works in the IT dept. of a French company in the current political climate. In football, supports Chelsea, Hibs, and for the sake of employment security, Marseille. For more articles and reviews by Marc on The New Review, click here or to read Marc's story, 'Plastic Paddy' on the Showcase, click here