Palm Coast artist Rick de Yampert to be featured artist at OMAM

Artist and author Rick de Yampert will be at the Ormond Memorial Art Museum during the April 6 art walk for a pop-up exhibit.

By Observer Staff
| 9:00 a.m. March 31, 2024

Author Rick de Yampert showcases some of his Mr. Crow art. Courtesy photo

Ormond Beach Observer
Your Town

For the past 15 year, Palm Coast author and artist Rick de Yampert has been hanging out with the crows behind his home.

He photographs them. He hears them "caterwaul like a cat when they're not cawing," according to a press release, and even watched as one crow hung upside-down on a tree limb. His fascination led him to create his Mr. Crow art, and to write his book, "Crows and Ravens: Mystery, Myth, and Magic of Sacred Corvids,” which was published in March.

“Crows are expressive creatures whose intelligence has been well-documented by science,” de Yampert said in the press release, noting that ravens are not found in Florida. “Wildlife biologist John Marzluff calls crows ‘feathered apes.’ They recognize human faces upon seeing them again — especially humans who have been harmful or aggressive toward them, and those who have been kind to them."

On April 6, de Yampert will be the featured artist at the Ormond Memorial Art Museum, located at 78 E. Granada Blvd., during the monthly art walk event. In addition to a pop-up exhibit of his Mr. Crow art, de Yampert will also sign copies of his book.

His Mr. Crow art springs from the approximately 10,000 photos he's taken of the birds. He never uses Photoshop or AI, he said in the press release.

"The forms of the crows you see in my art — heads tilted this way or that, wings a-flutter, etc. — are the way my camera captured them in nature. My art is my way to visibly portray crows’ magical, mystical nature,” de Yampert said.