SPARKLE PLENTY

SEQUIN NOVA oil on canvas 30 x 40" sold

Take one industrious arachnid, high humidity, pre-dawn, a motion sensor light, a zoom lens, and you too can find these amazing scenes in your corner of the world. If stalking spiders is not your thing, allow me to do the work for you. This one feels like an explosion to me: all those points of light-catching stuff dissolving outward with a shiny bang. The breeze interrupted the mechanical perfection of the hub and spoke pattern–which is what makes it more interesting, I think. It kept blowing back and forth, catching the light and warping. Quite a visual bang. These beauties are built by long-legged, brightly orange fellows, who spiral round and round, usually upside down, building the spokes and cross-spoke lines. Perhaps it is hackneyed to express admiration for the wonder of these constructions: architecture without architects, fierce beauty, the struggle for survival, the impossible tensile strength of the silk, and the unimaginable knowingness of the builder. Well, so be it: it is incredible, and I am just trite enough to say so!