Growing up in the 90s as a child of Appalachia, I was fascinated by the diverse city life portrayed in the Nickelodeon cartoon, Hey Arnold! I was enamored by the parallel stories that were unfolding in Arnold’s apartment building and in his city everyday. When I moved to DC in 2014, I finally felt like I was immersed in Arnold’s reality. Inspired by the diversity of the often quiet, unseen, and diverse stories that are woven together to form the fabric of city life, I created the Washington Trashbirds.

If we notice them at all, we often view city pigeons as being homogeneous, personality-less, throw-away animals. My muses, the Washington Trashbirds, are a fanciful and unique collective of DC pigeons, who revel in the joys, diversity, and excitement of city life. Trashbirds add quiet comfort, continuity, and familiarity to the city and serve as resilient guides when we feel overwhelmed or lost. Often invisible, they see value in both the city’s most venerated buildings and in the most unappreciated corners of metro’s brutalist vaults.

Adrienne Dalton is a DC-based, Appalachian-born, folk artist who creates whimsical digital and acrylic paintings that celebrate the authenticity of her native and adoptive homes. Her artwork merges familiar places with surrealist scenes to shine light on the often under-appreciated and overlooked joys of everyday life. Her primary muses are a group of fanciful city pigeons, the Washington Trashbirds, who revel in the unique thrills of the city.