Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I Had This Concept...

It goes like this.

Years ago Trudy shouted enthusiastically, while looking at my sample pieces during lunch at Lambretta's; "Everybody loves boucle!" So I bought fine boucle yearns, and wove with them, but none of the galleries wanted them, so I put them in exhibitions, but nobody bought them. So they sat on my stash room floor for several years. I might have sold some, or thrown them in charity bins, because I have one big one and one small one left. But the moths loved the big one; it has three holes in it now.

Being the "artist" that I am, I thought to embellish the large piece based on the idea that only moths loved this one. So I Googled moths, but the larvae, who are the real culprits, gave me the heebie jeebies and the Googling ended in 20 seconds.

I was thinking of what moths/larvae like to eat, (wool!!!), what they congregate around, (not flowers; light bulbs??), and, ahem, the sex life of moths which produces larvae. Yuck, yuck, yuck; the life of an "artist"? I wanted to call the piece "Eat Me!", but Kath thought that's in such poor taste, even for me, so I'm thinking "Eat My Shawl!" I was hoping to embellish it at home using Japanese material, except I still don't know what motif I'm going to use. The End.

PS: In all my life I've read perhaps a dozen or two National Geographic articles, all on ancient civilizations, but I do remember pictures, and the most memorable series was the moths in May 2002 issue. They look heaps better than larvae, but will they look like butterflies when embroidered/beaded/felted on to the shawl? That's overly simplistic, anyway. This requires more artist-ly thinking. The pics still make my skin itch, though...

6 comments:

  1. i haven't had an infestation of the moth yet, hoping my obsessiveness about living in air conditioning will prevent it. But I have heard of moth-proofing your wool. I don't know how it is done though. I could find out. google is my friend. as are you.

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  2. Great concept. I love moths as a motif, but share your gross-out over blown up photographs of them. When I was in school they read us a fatuous inspirational essay every day. One featured the author remembering how, as a teenager, he convinced the little boy he was babysitting not to kill moths by having him look at one up close and see that it was furry. "Look, it's a flying teddy-bear!" he told the boy. And I privately thought nothing could be further from a flying teddybear than a moth, and that the idea flying teddybears bumbling around the porchlights was somehow even more of a creep-out.

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  3. Dana, the room should be good now - and I have nothing sitting on the floor. That's this side of the big clean up.

    Trapunto, restless flying teddy bears appear almost as bad as the flying monkeys!!! Shivvvver!

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  4. Tranputo, lovely story, though. I guess. In some ways. My sister in law will like it; she was taught not even to kill flies and spiders; very Zen. Now Brother gently picks up spiders and throws them out the window, and good for him. Now I do that, too, but I can't help being creeped out at the same time.

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  5. I adore moths, so does our Annie-cat, I like to look at them but she eats them.

    I guess I'm lucky that clothes moths are rare in NW England. I can't bear the thought of finding precious things full of holes. Your artwork ideas bring images from Hitchcock films to mind.

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  6. Dorothy, "The Birds", I know!!! In reality, though, I bet it's just a tiny larva or two! Still, Monsters!!!

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