The Words He Cannot Say

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 14 @ 5:00 - 7:00PM 

(beginning with a 10 minute talk)

Show Dates: Nov 14 - Nov 29

Leo Bird learned how to write textual stories in the vein of JD Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald in 2011 through a Writing Short Stories class at Pella, Iowa’s Central College. His singing skills that he acquired from singing in bands in high school (2006) prepared him for performing at open mics in 2018. A year later, the funniest part of a story where Leo used a drawing to illustrate the difference between two dorm room set ups inspired him to create drawings for his other stories.

Through trial and error, Leo discovered that he needed to use a laser pointer to refer to the drawings as he spoke, and the drawings needed to be about something he was talking about. At 2019’s end, a drawing class at the Des Moines Moines introduced Leo

to Staedtler markers and the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which taught him to use photo references for his drawings instead of making up images of people from his imagination.

Leo won second place three times at an open mic competition in 2019. Leo began exhibiting art in 2021 at the Iowa State Fair. ‘Where’s My Buddy?’, a drawing depicting Leo’s experience of finding a table to sit at lunch in college, won third place at the Greater Des Moines Exhibited in November 2022 and at the Enchanted Illusions exhibit in January 2023, and first place at the Oak Park Art League in October 2023. A wood figure inspired by ‘Where’s My Buddy?’ won third place at the 2024 Iowa State

Fair. Leo’s first big art sale was at the April 2024 Bohemian Arts Festival in Des Moines’ Merle Hay Mall. By January 2027, he will have exhibited art in Nebraska, Iowa, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Janesville, Wisconsin, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Faribault, Minnesota.