Several artist-inspired bird feeders displayed together, showing modern geometric shapes and bold, simple color blocks.

Chirp Designs Bird Feeders from Mondrian, Kusama and Calder’s Ideas

2026-11-08

Chirp, a father-daughter design workshop in Weymouth, Massachusetts, has turned the visual ideas of eight modern and contemporary artists into artist-inspired bird feeders. Co-founders Nima Yadollahpour and his daughter Mina created the line as a follow-up to their modernist birdhouses.

The earlier birdhouses drew on Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. The new feeders shift that interest toward the work of artists.

Bird feeder with suspended shapes inspired by Alexander Calder's mobile sculptures. — No.3 Calder bird feeder

Why art came next

Nima Yadollahpour says architecture was the natural starting point for the birdhouses, and art was the logical next step. He has long been interested in how art and architecture relate. A feeder gave the team a different kind of object to work with.

Modern bird feeder from Chirp Company's artist-inspired collection. — Modern Birdhouses, Birdhouse Kits and Bird Feeders – Chirp Company

Three artist-inspired bird feeders, three approaches

Yadollahpour says Piet Mondrian offered clear ideas about geometry and structure, so the No. 1 feeder starts there.

Restraint can be just as striking in three dimensions, as seen in Hans Op de Beeck’s Grayscale Sculptures, which play with the pull of vanishing points.

Chirp Company bird feeder design shown as part of its modern collection. — Modern Birdhouses, Birdhouse Kits and Bird Feeders – Chirp Company

Yayoi Kusama pushed the team toward repetition and pattern, he says. The No. 2 feeder reflects that focus.

Modern bird feeder from Chirp Company, styled after artist-inspired designs. — Modern Birdhouses, Birdhouse Kits and Bird Feeders – Chirp Company

Alexander Calder gave the designers a way to explore positive and negative space, according to Yadollahpour. The No. 3 feeder carries that idea.

Bird feeder inspired by Lee Bontecou's sculptural wall reliefs and dark, open forms. — No.6 Bontecou bird feeder

From those starting points, the team asked how color, geometry, repetition, mass, and positive and negative space could become something useful to birds. Each idea had to serve a function.

Bird feeder with a grid-based geometric pattern inspired by Sol LeWitt's wall drawings. — No. 4 LeWitt bird feeder

Birds become part of the art

Yadollahpour sees the feeder as a living piece. Birds arrive, perch, feed and move through it, so their color and motion keep changing the composition.

The designers cannot fully control that result in advance. In Yadollahpour’s view, the birds themselves become part of the artwork.

Bird feeder inspired by Louise Nevelson's stacked wooden box assemblages painted in black. — No.6 Nevelson bird feeder

Five more artists

Yadollahpour credits Mark Rothko with lessons in proportion, depth and restraint. Those qualities shaped the Rothko feeder.

Lee Bontecou, Louise Nevelson and Joan Miró each opened different possibilities for form, texture and composition, he says. The goal was to let each piece differ from the next.

Sol LeWitt completes the list of eight. The collection’s LeWitt-inspired feeder sits alongside the rest of the series.

Bird feeder inspired by Mark Rothko's soft, layered color field paintings. — No.5 Rothko bird feeder

Yadollahpour told Wallpaper* that the brief was to find artists with strongly distinct visual languages. The team then translated those languages into three-dimensional objects without copying any single work.

Function still comes first

Each of these artist-inspired bird feeders begins with one aspect of an artist’s work, but it still has to work for birds. Chirp made sure every bird feeder design holds seed, gives birds places to land and feed, withstands weather, and stays practical to maintain.

For the designers, the real measure is whether birds use the feeders. Watching them do so is the most satisfying part of the project.

If watching the birds is the best part, the tech side of birdwatching is worth a look too: BirdVue’s FEED 1 Radar and AI Birdwatching shows how far the hobby has come.

An ongoing project

Chirp currently groups the feeders into two lines, the Profile Series and the Relief Series. The studio says it still has many artists and ideas to explore.

These feeders extend a project that began with architectural birdhouses. Chirp’s bet is that a feeder can be a piece of art and a dependable meal for birds at once. The full collection is available through chirpbirdhouses.com.

Source: wallpaper.com

Frequently asked questions

Who created the artist-inspired bird feeders from Chirp?

Chirp, a father-daughter design workshop in Weymouth, Massachusetts, created the artist-inspired bird feeders. Its co-founders are Nima Yadollahpour and his daughter Mina.

Which artists inspired the Chirp bird feeder collection?

The collection draws on the visual ideas of eight modern and contemporary artists: Piet Mondrian, Yayoi Kusama, Alexander Calder, Mark Rothko, Lee Bontecou, Louise Nevelson, Joan Miró, and Sol LeWitt. The article also mentions Hans Op de Beeck‘s Grayscale Sculptures as an example of restraint in three dimensions, though it is not listed among the eight.

Do the artist-inspired bird feeders still work for birds?

Yes, each feeder begins with an aspect of an artist’s work but must still function for birds. Chirp made sure every design holds seed, gives birds places to land and feed, withstands weather, and stays practical to maintain.

What are the Chirp bird feeder product lines called?

Chirp currently groups the feeders into two lines, the Profile Series and the Relief Series. The full collection is available through chirpbirdhouses.com.