I watched a spider build a magnificent, intricate, multilayered web. A tiny insect crashed into it, breaking some of the strands, becoming stuck. The spider rushed in to take action. As part of the web of Creation, are we the spider, or the fly?
The signature piece for this show is “We Have Nets to Mend.” In 2010 I did a body of work on the web of creation. I had a vision of no longer being able to venture out to sea to fish, but to still help out by sitting on the shore mending nets for the younger ones who still would do the work. See this 2010 show here.
As I considered this question, I thought of the many ways my ancestors tried to mend their own nets or webs, immigration being a big one. Beginning in the 1600s, from France, Scotland, and Germany they came, refugees from religious persecution, poverty, and civil war.
“And So They Set Out — Stamp a White Horse” references my father’s ancestors who were expelled from Scotland after the Battle of Culloden.
We learned as kids to “stamp a white horse for luck.” Years ago, I heard the keeper of the a book of Kells suggest that it could come from an ancient spell evoking Epona. Was that in their minds as the green cliffs of home faded into the distance?
I moved from painting to clay, as I explored the non-human inhabitants of the web. Flora: I carved branch hangers from juniper and rosemary prunings on our land. Fauna: personages appeared from dark clay, as well as a face imagining our long metamorphosis from reptilian ancestors. Several of the figures were inspired by the hymn, God of the Sparrow, by Jaroslav J. Vajda.
And there are feathers… images of our deepest connection to all on this planet.
Making art is a way of mending, minding the web. We might bring attention to tiny bits of exquisite beauty, or expose an ugly break in the web which needs repair. We are, then, spiders.
Yet some of our materials were violently wrested from the earth, so in that sense we are flies.
I watched a spider build a magnificent, intricate, multilayered web. A tiny insect crashed into it, breaking some of the strands, becoming stuck. The spider rushed in to take action. As part of the web of Creation, are we the spider, or the fly?
