A Nest for Celeste: A Story About Art, Inspiration, and the Meaning of Home

John James Audubon was a self-taught artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. He was born on April 26, 1785 in what is now Haiti. His father, a merchant and enslaver named Jean Audubon, raised him in France. Audubon was fascinated with drawing and exploring nature from childhood. When he was 18 years old, his father sent him to manage a farm near Philadelphia. There he met Lucy Bakewell, whom he married in 1808. Beginning in the 1820s, Audubon set out to capture the birds of North America in lifelike portraits. The teenage assistant who appears in Cole’s fictionalized account of Audubon’s life has a historical counterpart. Joseph Mason spent two years with the artist and painted many of the plants in the backgrounds of Audubon’s portraits. During their time together, Mason and Audubon traveled from Cincinnati, Ohio, to New Orleans, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi. After Audubon secured financial support for his artistic endeavors in England, his paintings were printed in The Birds of America, which depicted over 400 different species. To this day, his works are celebrated “not only for their ornithological exactness, but also for their vitality and keen sense of design” (“