When William Harrison Brown (aka Bird) returns to the island of his youth, he attempts to take up the family legacy of landscape painting, something he had previously vowed never to do because of his father's and his great grandfather's fame. However, Bird paints his landscapes with a 1961 Underwood typewriter, working towards the completion of his exhaustive project: A Complete Landscape Painter's History of Aquaneck Island.
A local art gallery hears about Bird's project, and primarily because of his family's fame, offers him a show. Bird's exhibit is, to say the least, unusual.
Head of Island Beautification for the Rural Outlands is part history of grief, part exploration of ghosts and hauntings, part philosophy of landscape painting, and part meditation on the nature of islands. Bird attempts to find peace within his lineage as a son, as an islander, and as a writer in a family, and in a larger culture, that often places visual artists on fame's pedestal.
