Inspired by years of driving Vermont's back roads, Eben Markowski created a series of barbed wire owl sculptures. The works grew from a recurring, fleeting vision: catching something in the corner of his eye that appeared to be a bird perched on a fence line, only to realize it was a coil of barbed wire. That moment of mistaken perception became the animating idea behind the series, with Eben weaving and bending the wire into richly textured, life-sized owls. Each sculpture carries the materiality of the rural landscape from which the idea emerged, rusted, weathered, and alive with barb and loop. One work from the series was included in Tossed, an exhibition at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. The owls found enthusiastic collectors, with all but one leaving the studio; Professor, distinguished by its characteristic wire-rimmed eyes, remains held by the artist.