Honoring Flaco the Owl: The Story Behind My Heart Sculptures

Hello to all my new subscribers.

My name is Sherry Been. I am an artist living in NYC, trying to navigate the art world as an emerging artist. I want to share my journey with everyone, but more importantly, I want to use this platform to bring love, compassion, and gratitude to the people who have been amazing during my journey.

I wasn’t sure how to do that, to be honest. It was made clear to me yesterday, so here I am, acting on this new insight.

The backstory is that becoming a known artist is confusing, expensive, and frustrating, often filled with hopelessness. Most artists will agree with me that they just want to make art. They never started creating things hoping they would become billionaires by doing so. It is the love of creation that carries us forward. In our quest for acknowledgment and the ever-present need for financial validation (or just to pay the bills), we plow ahead and try to find a financial reward at the end of the long, dark tunnel.

I am now at the part of the creative process that defines why I love being an artist in the first place. It is my ability to express the love in my heart for others in a way that creates love and beauty for the individuals I have met through my personal journey, as well as touching the soul of the universe.

My artwork is so infused with love that it has actually taken the shape of a heart. I was on a roll and made many hearts in different colors and sizes. I found them to be stunning, each individually unique, and, mostly, I found them overwhelmingly beautiful. I wasn’t sure how to market these hearts, but I worked on different revenue streams like getting a website and posting them on social media. I listed them on 1st Dibs and Saatchi Art. All these things take a tremendous amount of work and realize only tiny success—maybe enough to keep going, but it is overwhelmingly time-consuming and frustrating. I only knew to keep making hearts, with no knowledge of how to make a living from the creation of my love-infused artwork.

And then Flaco died. New Yorkers know about Flaco. For the rest of you, I will share. Flaco lived in a cage for the first 10 years of his life. The wire to his cage was cut, and he escaped into Central Park. There was great concern about how to recapture Flaco, because he had never hunted for himself, and people were certain he wouldn’t thrive in the environment of Manhattan.

But Flaco did thrive. He learned to hunt and was clever at avoiding the traps set out to recapture him. He explored Manhattan, and most importantly, on his journey of touching our hearts, he was his authentic self. People were inspired by Flaco in amazing ways. Flaco gave individuals the strength to be their authentic selves. People became courageous in their own right. Many stopped putting their dreams on hold and started their own businesses or changed jobs or relationships. It was a transformative time, all inspired by an owl just doing his owl thing and being the best version of himself.

When Flaco died, tragically flying into a building, NYC mourned that loss. I mourned that loss as well. I wrote a tribute to him, and I made a heart for him. I tried to capture the color of his beautiful feathers and interspersed threads of red glass into the heart to reflect that he was a powerful hunter.

I gave this beautiful heart sculpture to my amazing sister. She is the one who told me about Flaco, and because of her sharing this beautiful story, it felt so amazing that she has this heart. It is deeply gratifying that we shared such an important experience. I feel blessed and humbled, and although it has been many months since Flaco passed, I am still in awe of the light that he shone on my world.

This leads me to my next inspiration. I could honor the lives of people who have touched my life and the lives of so many others in countless ways. We share a bond with people who have changed the world. I am able to dedicate my heart sculptures to amazing people who have traveled their journey with authenticity and enlightened so many of us with their story.

So as I move forward with my career as an artist, I will be dedicating hearts to those who have touched my life directly and indirectly. I will tell you the story of that person as best I know how. I look forward to sharing with you.

Sherry Been