 |
I collected dead bugs for months to make this piece, refusing to kill any myself, so they had to show up dead already, at which point I would collect them in little Ziploc bags and store them next to my monitor. At one point I had 14 ants, two dragonflies, a small green beetle, a bee, a wasp, and a horsefly. I refused to collect roaches because I find them disgusting and repulsive (I apologize to any roach-loving entomologists out there) and I tend to wash my hands repeatedly after I vacuum one up and my skin never comes in contact with their squiggly, nasty bodies; I can't imagine what I'd put myself through if I put one on my scanner. I also refused to collect spiders because I am a confirmed arachnophobe. Just walking through a web gives me clammy sweats; seeing one makes me jumpy. God forbid if one gets on me. I become a sobbing hysterical mess. Whenever I visit my parents, if I leave at night, I get someone to do the spider walk in front of me on my way to my car because I have driven into some amazingly large spider webs outside their house with some amazingly large spiders still attached to them. Anyway, this piece revolves around the theme of time. The ants represent the numbers on a clock, with the dragonfly becoming the hands on that clock. Insects seem to fall into two categories: they either feed off of death or they propagate life, so here you have the dichotomy that is the impermanence of life. Their little carcasses further underscore that impermanence. I know there is more to be read in my choice of insects as well, but I honestly don't remember what I've researched. I know that bees are symbols of divinity and of oracles, and dragonflies are amazingly under-defined in my three symbol dictionaries (not even mentioned in the two most thorough ones) but seem to have something to do with aimlessness and instability and possibly the Creator in some Native American cultures. Ants, of course, are industry, but wasps? I'm sure if I really dove into it I could find all sorts of good stuff, but I'm an artist. Curators and art historians are supposed to do some of this! This piece is in the collection of Canon and Leah Kirby. |