The Birds and the Bees and More: Pollinators

Pallid Bat 12x16” oil on panel ©2024 Susan McDonnell, On view at the California Nature Art Museum

Last year I was invited to create six paintings for a pollinator exhibit at the California Nature Art Museum in Solvang, California. When discussing the exhibit with director Stacey Otte-Demangate, she said she was hoping to represent some of the lesser known pollinators, such as birds and bats. I said, “wonderful, I’ve always wanted to paint a bat”.

I have spent countless hours hanging out with and photographing birds, bugs, bears, bunnies etc., but never a bat. I use the photographs as reference for my paintings. Spending time with my subject matter connects me in a way that a photograph alone cannot. When I’m painting, the animal encounter is with me in the studio.

After some research and dead ends I could not find a reasonable opportunity to photograph a bat for a painting so I bought a beautiful image of a pallid bat online. Jared Hobbs is the photographer (and biologist) and he generously granted me royalty-free use of his photo. I painted his bat into my imaginary setting adding a cactus flower for the pollination theme.

When creating this bat painting I had many moments when I was missing the connection of encounter. Then one night when I went to bed something strange happened…

A bat flew into my bedroom!

This has to be in the top five craziest things I’ve experienced. It was about midnight, I was reading in bed and a big brown bat flew in my bedroom and circled erratically.

Long story, very short; after two hours and a few failed attempts I was able to catch the bat in a bathroom waste basket covering it with a folder and escorting it outside where it flew away. And the next day I painted the bat painting with a great feeling of bat connection firmly in place.

Big brown bat. I found this image online (with no credit given), this is what the bat looked like in my room. I did not get my camera that night, although it crossed my mind, twice. I was 110% focused on catching the bat. I’m quite certain the bat rode in on some wicker lawn furniture I had brought inside a couple days before.

March 9, 2024