"A Little Bird Told Me"

Published in "Explorations of the Mirror" Art Journal with the companion poem "Guess What A Little Bird Told Me "I painted this when I was at my lowest. I was sad, really in the depths of it, and I didn't want to paint sadness. I wanted to paint my way out of it. So I gave myself an assignment: paint something so uplifting it would lift me too.

She came in answer to that.

She is the woman from the carnival in my poem — the sad and depressed woman wandering through noise and lights, feeling everything and nothing at once.

And then, a little bird landed. In the painting, you can see the moment after the whisper. She has this huge, toothy, unstoppable grin — not a polite smile, but the kind of smile that breaks through tears. The kind that changes your face. Her blue Marie Antoinette hair is piled high with roses and two long feathers, her white ruff is tinted pink, her corset is rainbows. She is dressed for the carnival, but the carnival is no longer outside her. It’s inside her again. And on her shoulder — her confidant, her catalyst — is the little bird. Look at the relationship between them. The bird is tiny, but he holds all the power in the painting. He is calm, perched right near her ear, his red eye bright. He is not chirping to the crowd. He is speaking only to her. And she is listening with her whole body.

Her hands are clutched around her umbrella — that beautiful, Art Nouveau-patterned umbrella that has been protecting her from the rain — but she doesn’t need it for rain anymore. She’s holding it like a maypole, like a dance partner.

Around them, the world has changed to match her mood. The background I painted in intricate, obsessive Art Nouveau style linework — dense, grey-blue flowers that felt like my depression, patterned and endless — is now bursting through with sunflowers. Big, golden, messy, sun-faced sunflowers pushing up from the bottom of the page, demanding to be seen. The flowers in her hair, the flowers on her umbrella, the flowers behind her — they are all waking up because she did.

The dynamics in this piece are simple, and that's the whole magic: One small truth, told by the right voice at the right time, can shift everything. The bird doesn't have to be big. It just has to be heard.

This watercolor is an antidepressant in paper form. It reminds you that joy is not always loud. Sometimes it’s just a little bird on your shoulder saying, "Guess what..."This piece comes with its full story — the extensive poem "Guess What A Little Bird Told Me" — as published in my art journal Explorations of the Mirror, where I explore how art mirrors our inner states back to us until we finally smile back.

For the collector: A highly detailed, joyful watercolor with strong Art Nouveau influences — layers of hand-drawn floral patterning, transparent washes of aqua and pink and sunflower yellow, and that signature Bonny Hut surreal-carnival touch. Look closely and you'll see each flower is different, each curl of blue hair has its own rose.

Perfect for a bedroom, a healing space, or anywhere you need a reminder that someone small is still rooting for you.