Many people have seen feathers as decorative items before. Today, ostrich, peacock and bird of paradise feathers can be seen in haute couture and in the costumes of indigenous peoples. They can be colorful and spectacular in their own right, but how much more stunning might they be when used as canvases for artists, eager to demonstrate their talent for the unusual? Alaskan-born and -bred artist Julie Thompson is an astounding exponent of this incredible art form.

“The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge”, “The Queen” and “Prince Harry” outside the Summerhall arts venue in Edinburgh, Scotland, where their creator Alison Jackson is holding a live performance of her work called La Trashiata. Debuting at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and broadcast to Odeon Cinemas in association with Hibrow Productions, “La Trashiata” will feature a roster of Alison Jackson's brilliant lookalikes singing some of opera's most famous arias. The stage will be set for uncanny doppelgangers to each take to the stage and perform their amusingly appropriate song. (Photo by James Glossop/The Times/SIPA Press/News Syndication)

Sami people from the Vilhelmina Norra Sameby, gather their reindeers herd in a corral for selection and calf labelling on October 27, 2016 near the village of Dikanaess, about 800 kilometers north-west of the capital Sweden. Sweden's Sami reindeer herders have more than hungry predators to worry about in the cold night, as the indigenous minority moves its flock to the winter pasture in the Nordic tundra. (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP Photo)

A man lies on the floor during a ritual at the Sorte Mountain on the outskirts of Chivacoa, in the state of Yaracuy, Venezuela October 10, 2015. One long night every year in a mountainous rainforest in Venezuela, hundreds gather to dance on red-hot embers, enter trance-like states, and worship an ancient goddess known as Maria Lionza. Those who travel to the mountain known as Sorte in central Venezuela are practitioners of a cult that is built on local indigenous traditions. (Photo by Marco Bello/Reuters)

A general view of Uluru is seen as it rains on November 28, 2013 in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia. Uluru/ Ayers Rock is a large sandstone formation situated in central Australia approximately 335km from Alice Springs. The site and its surrounding area is scared to the Anangu people, the Indigenous people of this area and is visited by over 250,000 people each year. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Indigenous Q'eqchi girls practice taekwondo with their teacher, Danny Coy, on a dirt court in the middle of the village in Tipulcan village, San Pedro Carcha, Guatemala, on 25 November 2019 (issued 27 November 2019). Tipulcan village girls learn taekwondo to combat sexist violence and harassment they have suffered in their community in northern Guatemala. (Photo by Esteban Biba/EPA/EFE)

In this November 19, 2015 photo, Ester Melendez feeds banana porridge to her nine-month-old daughter Dina, in Pichiquia, an Ashaninka indigenous community in Peru's Junin region. Incursions and assaults by loggers, miners, colonists and leftist guerrillas have reduced the lands of the Ashaninka people in the Peruvian Amazon, leaving many of the 97,000 members of the group malnourished, despite efforts by the government and independent organizations to help. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

David Pariken 46, of the indigenous Maasai community, roasts meat at the inaugural Maa Cultural Week dubbed The Maa-Festival aimed to promote peace, tourism, and cultural exchange as the wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus) make their annual cross border migration at the Sekenani village, in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, in Narok County, Kenya on August 22, 2023. (Photo by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)