Bird on a Wire: The Life and Art of Guy Taplin Hardcover – Illustrated, 12 July 2007

This is a lavishly illustrated volume about the works of Guy Taplin. I was unfamiliar with Taplin and bought it as a present for my bird loving partner. The text is interesting and informative and its subject is intriguing. Taplin was born in Whitechapel in 1939 but was exposed to the countryside of Herefordshire during the war and it clearly left a lasting impression as he turned again to the countryside later in life. He developed a successful business producing ornamental - and deeply trendy - belt buckles in the '60s and '70s before moving out to Essex and rediscovering rural life, beachcombing and birds. Since looking through this book, I've read more on the internet about Taplin. In a press interview, he claimed that carving a duck was as simple as 'cutting away the bits that weren't like a duck'. Of course, this was ridiculously modest. I have seen plenty of naively executed wooden birds at numerous birdwatching events I've been to with my partner and many of them have looked a bit silly - not always close to the real birds in terms of detail and appearing very static. I guess Taplin's birds are simple - yet they're not naïve. His are bird sculptures stripped down to the bare essence of the birds. Beautifully sinuous, they look like they might take off at any second. This is just on basis of the book's superb illustrations - I've not seen them in real life but can only imagine they would be quite stunning. I'm not madly interested in birds or wildlife but I did like this book. Taplin has had an interesting and varied life straddling the apparent opposites of rural and urban worlds. In a way, Taplin appears to have followed a similar route to some of his contemporaries in seeking out a slower, less materialistic lifestyle - with the high point for him coming when he could use his observational skills to depict aspects of the natural environment which excited him. This is a book with wide cross-over appeal - not just a book for bird lovers or indeed for art lovers - and a great book to get lost in for a while.

lovely book

Thyis copy i intend to give to my 10 yr old granddaughter who spends ages leafing through my first copy,she will treasure it.

This book exemplifies to me all that Ian Collins does right when writing about an artist - he gets to know them, almost moves in with them and gets right under their skin but never intrudes himself into the writing. We hear of Guy's amazing life and read writeups from several of his very eminent fans - it made me want to save up for one of his gorgeous bird arrays but for now I will have to settle for the book which is a good start.

A favourite which I wll go back to again and again. An informative book in which Taplin shares his personal life - past and present - and how he got to the point he is at now. Includes articles from other artists sharing their insights and experiences with Guy the twitcher (a bird watcher). The writer was able to make you feel that you were there watching, and left you wanting to travel to this area and be part of this amazing world of Guy Taplin.