Lisa Sanchez

In the above drawing, I have portrayed the eleven birds who appear in Attar’s Conference of the Birds. The hoopoe, shown here at the center of the drawing, leads the other ten birds on a journey which represents the sufi path toward mystical union with God. Each of the birds is used to illustrate a different characteristic of human resistance, which must be overcome in order to truly encounter the Divine.

As I read this work, I found that each of the birds took on such vivid characterizations, and I alternately laughed, nodded, and scowled as I sympathized with their protestations to the Hoopoe. There were a few types of birds with which I was unfamiliar, however, so I was curious to flesh out their figures in my mind, to go along with their vibrant personalities.

For this work, I decided to simply sketch the figures of the various birds which appear in the Conference of the Birds, with the hoopoe at the center. Rather than striving for detailed realism, I simply tried to convey the simple and somewhat whimsical outline of each bird, with the hope that some of their characterizations from the poem would emerge through their figures. I decided to fill the page with only the figures of these birds, in order to convey a sense of noisy chaos as the hoopoe attempts to rein in their competing and self-indulgent personalities.