NAFA members received an exciting surprise in the 2019 December Hawk Chalk in the form of a first ever poster, distributed by Marshall Radio. As a witness to the events surrounding the unveiling of the mural at Marshall HQ in North Salt Lake, Robert asked if I could write a recollection of the moment the mural was first revealed. The following article is that recollection, and it ended up in the Hawk Chalk along with the beautiful poster. Dan Milner worked with Robert Bagley and Tim Jessell to arrange all of this for the Hawk Chalk, and I must say, he did an incredible job.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1!”
Cries of awe and delight erupt as the curtains fall away, dropping to the floor before the assembled party of cheering Marshall Radio employees and guests. An unexpectedly epic and completely original wall mural is unveiled! Standing amongst them, camera in hand, my eyes are pulled a hundred ways at once! Larger than life, with so much detail, this is far too magnificent a work to take in at a glance!
Launching the Falconry Told Podcast in Utah was a good call. The state serves as a sort of crossroads through which falconers from all over the country pass, providing lots of great guest opportunities and interesting material for our fledgling podcast to seize upon, whenever we can arrange it! Aiming for a weekly release, the first few months of developing the podcast had us scrambling. Shooting emails, making phone calls, working any angle we could to arrange the next episode. We knew if we wanted the podcast to succeed, we’d have to keep the content coming with compelling guests and topics! An avid reader, I know a good story when I see one; the story of Marshall Radio and how they helped in transforming modern falconry over the last two decades was one I’d been dying to tell.
In conversations with Robert Bagley, I learned that Tim Jessell—the falconer/illustrator behind much of their iconic advertising—had been tapped to attempt to do just that... but through the medium of a gigantic mural. Woah! Tim’s Marshall and NAFA posters were a huge source of inspiration in my early falconry days. Standing before one, I’d be transported out into the field like I was right there with the illustrated falconers, hunting down their lost goshawk, braving a blizzard in the forest as we followed that iconic “beep” through the darkness to their bird! Before ever owning a tracking product, I just knew Marshall had to be the best. That was the type of power in Tim’s illustrations, and I wanted to meet him as a guest for an episode of the podcast!
Robert also thought that was a good idea, but suggested we take it further. It was arranged that I would join Tim and the Marshall Team for the moment the mural would be unveiled at their headquarters, I’d be there to film and document it. Being brought up to speed with what Robert and Tim had been collaborating on for several months, I was utterly blown away. What had originally been simply a cool idea for another podcast quickly became a passion project for me, as I was swept in by the magnitude of what they were attempting. Seeing it as only a rough sketch, I knew this mural would be a historic addition to the timeless artwork of falconry!
In Robert’s words, “What we wanted to convey is that there’s something significant going on here, something everyone’s a part of, yet we probably don’t actually see it in its proper context. We’re involved in an activity that goes back in time, well before recorded history, and yet spreads the globe across many cultures in our present day. How do you put it into those two dimensions of time and space? And moreover, how do you recognize the positive impact that GPS has now made as one of our own generation’s contributions to this ancient art.”
Essentially, you had two falconers over a thousand miles apart who had collaborated on a number of iconic illustrations over the years, now working in synch to conceptualize something that had never been attempted: illustrating our shared global and historic falconry story on a 35-foot mural. Based in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Tim was in daily contact with Robert. Their goal was straightforward, yet infinitely complex. They wanted to fit the entire history of falconry as well as how Marshall RT GPS has fundamentally changed its course, into a standalone mural. To echo Robert, “How do you show that?”
Robert and Tim have been working together on artistic projects for upwards of twenty years. Over time, Tim has become familiar with Robert’s thinking and knows how to explore and develop his ideas. Robert on the other hand, is familiar with Tim’s abilities and knows how to draw the best out of him. It requires a myriad of phone calls and messages; the project beginning with Robert standing before an empty wall, measuring tape in hand. The steady communication evolves into a shared stream of consciousness as vision and talent intertwine and Tim’s Wacom Tablet becomes the outlet for their collective focus.
Modern art, like modern falconry, has been positively influenced by modern technology. Digitally, Tim creates artwork that strikingly resembles traditional paintings, “I work digitally from the ground up… as traditionally as I can. I don’t use a lot of layers. I fool people every day that its traditional art so I coined the term ‘tradigital.’ I just want that warm feel of traditional art and I use build up techniques just like in natural media” he says. But while his work resembles traditional art, he’s able to go beyond it into realms artists couldn’t go before. No, nobody is claiming digital artwork will ever replace classic mediums. Neither would GPS users claim Marshall has replaced the need for classic falconry methods! It just opens the doors to so much more! Digitally, Tim is able to use time-honored techniques but also methods impossible on a canvas, or in this case, on a wall. Just like we’re now able to build better relationships with our birds, not just to recover them! To confidently fly them at heights and in ways never before conceivable, safely, as well as return to the flight later to replay it and learn from it! If Tim doesn’t like how a layer turned out, he can go back and erase it, adjust it, or retouch it, without risking the artwork at large! Now a falconer can see his falcon’s height, location, speed, and more, in real-time! It’s knowing what’s going on when they are out of visual sight, not guessing!
The goal of representing this art we inherited going back in time and leading up to the present day and the advent of Marshall Radio’s GPS was accomplished by fading the oldest figures of falconry into the background. This ghosting would indicate the passing of time, with later figures becoming more contrasted, and the character’s representing today’s falconers vividly in the foreground, with the Peregrine sporting its GPS transmitter up front and center, leading the way into the future.
“Robert and I talked about the idea conceptually and I started sketching... I knew something was different when almost a week had gone by and I wasn't even done with the pencil sketch. I was like, ‘wow, I've bitten into a whale here.’ So I finally got the penciling over to Robert and was thinking, ‘if he doesn't like it then this is going to be a lot of work just to change.’ Thankfully, he replied ‘oh this is great, let's move forward!’ And then, gosh, I don’t remember exactly how long I spent on it, I did an underpainting, again warning that it was going to take a long time. We had set a date that we thought we could hit originally, but during the underpainting stage I was already having misgivings. Just due to the size, scope, and the amount of things that were in the image! It was a ton of work, I can honestly say I've never put so many condensed hours for such a long period of time into one project. It was a total of about 4 months, probably two and a half months of just hard painting every day until about 2 in the morning! My wife and I run a boarding kennel at home and she pretty much had to take over just so we could get through this. I also teach classes at Oklahoma State, luckily I was off teaching so it worked out! I ended up delivering the final piece about a month late, but as one art director said to me, ‘nothing it late if its good!’ So, hopefully it's good! Everyone seems to be pleased, but that was a process. It was an emotional day when I finally finished! It was like rumors around the whole family, ‘Tim finished the mural! Tim finished the mural!’ Because it sort of turned life upside down, I had to be so laser focused to get it done. Hopefully it's a piece that will be of impact in the falconry world and that will be around for a while.”
“Every time we now come in to work or when customers come from around the world for company tours, we will all walk past Tim’s epic illustration, this grand shared story. We’ll be reminded that we’re involved in something big, honoring those who went before, and maybe feel some gratitude.” - Tim Jessell.