Kathryn Kosto describes the inspiration for her framed mirror collage, My Nest: "As the birds seek nests outside my window at his time of year, I am reminded of Anne Bradstreet's poem, ‘In Reference To Her Children,' in which her maternal metaphor encompasses both new-hatched chicks and bold fledglings.  She reveals that motherhood, then as now, is a balance of protectiveness and pride."

"My Nest"

Stained glass artist, Joseph Tracy, shares the inspiration for his window, Flight From Glen Bolcain. "My brother-in-law sent the poem, ‘Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish' by Seamus Heaney, sure that I would like it. I have kept it close to me for two years now and it has drawn from me much thought, many drawings, and this window. I see the poem, about an Irish warrior chieftain named Sweeney, who is cursed, or transformed into a bird, by a cleric.  As a result, Sweeney's life is turned into suffering and loss, yet the beauty he sees is all the more piercing because of his hardship.  His banishment from humanity is wildly offset by the fact that he becomes a creature of flight, a bird of the air, unbound from gravity."

The following is the passage of ‘Sweeney Astray' which is quoted on the window:

"I am a sheep without a fold who sleeps the sound sleep in the old tree at Kilnoo dreaming back the old days with Congal in Antrim a starry frost will come dropping on pools and I'll be astray here on unsheltered heights herons calling in cold Glenelly flocks of birds quickly coming and going I prefer the elusive rhapsody of blackbirds To the garrulous blather of men and women."

Tracy's thoughts and description of the poem will be available to be read at the Guild Gallery.