"A Proper Burial" Artist Statement

As an amateur entomologist (very amateur), I enjoy finding bugs, dead or alive. The dead bugs can sometimes be a mystery to solve; a metaphor. My first discovery was a large amount of flies buzzing around my front porch, which is screened in, accompanied by the foul odor of death. At the time we were fostering a rescued Pit Bull who was very aggressive toward other animals. We had heard some sort of fight far under the house a couple days earlier, but could do nothing about it so I assumed that this stench was a result of that battle. The flies grew in number as did the intensity of the smell. Eventually there were dead flies everywhere, and I began to collect them in a jar. The flies only came about as a result of the death of an armadillo. Their short lives were comprised of eating the rotting flesh, laying eggs in the carcass, and repeating this process until there were no more resources, and the flies soon died in the same area. This metaphor was easy enough for me to digest: the dog was abused and therefore angry and killed this animal, and though flies are gross and disease-ridden, they were given life as a result of this. The cycle of life isn't always pretty, but new life does emerge from death, even if the death is untimely and gruesome.

My next discovery was of a Luna moth. It was slightly traumatizing, but I feel like it was important, at least for me, to have experienced killing this beautiful insect. After the inspiration from the dead flies, I decided to keep an open mind and go on an expedition with an entomologist. John (the entomologist) happened to be at a coffee shop as another friend and I were discussing our own respective needs to go searching for bugs, mine as inspiration maybe, and his for a science class, collecting and identifying beetles. When we found John, we talked about bugs for a moment then were off to a random gas station in Micanopy. Here, he says, you can find lots of beetles and bugs, apparently entomology students frequent this particular gas station. It was nothing special, a normal Sunoco… but what do I know? We searched for beetles and bugs, I came on this trip with no particular action plan, just to observe, talk and learn some things. Right before we left, a huge green moth soared into the lit area behind the building, it was a Luna Moth, and John needed a female of these for her eggs, conducting some sort of experiment at the school. He regretfully didn't bring nets or any other tools than envelopes and vials to store captured bugs in, so we caught it with our hands. When he finally caught the moth he decided that it was a male, and therefore had no eggs and that he didn't need it. I told him that I would keep the moth and that i thought it was very beautiful, so we captured it again and I put it in one of his envelopes and placed it into a cassette tape box to prevent escape. I felt sort of regretful about this and I wished that I could set him free, but knew he wouldn't survive anyway. I asked John for reassurance of the ethics of capturing live bugs. He explained that Luna moths spend most of their lives in other phases of development and that they are only matured adults (as was this moth) for maybe a week, in which they mate and die. Further, full grown adults can no longer eat, their mouths grow shut, and they can only mate. Also, students collect all sorts of live bugs for preservation and study, and there are many more bugs per square mile than animals. Still, killing the poor thing felt wrong, and I am not a professional entomologist. He told me to place the envelope in the freezer and the moth would die in a quick and humane way. When I opened the freezer to examine it in the morning, I noticed that It had laid eggs as a result of stress, and that I had now killed a possible 20 other moths! I decided that I hated killing the bugs, and that this moth would be a reminder of how that realization felt. Research into the Luna moth made this worse as I discovered that many myths about fairies (especially nocturnal ones) were derived from the observance of this specific moth. A part of my childhood died, I had killed a fairy.

A chance discovery happened over the course of my research. I came across some copal, a material that is a byproduct of distilling turpentine from tree sap. It is golden in color, and is what over thousands of years will become amber. This specific batch came from a group of people in Georgia whose mission involves sustainability and natural medicine. It must have been decided that the left-over resin-like material shouldn't be wasted, so a man took it upon himself to stop at locations on his way back to Florida where artists may want to utilize this stuff. So, by chance, he came by the art department at UF and talked to Brad, giving him a sample of their turpentine and a couple buckets full of this material. At first I was very interested in using this natural resin as a form of preservation for my bug specimens, it was very different from working with epoxy, but I figured it out and set my flies in it in the form of a wand. A wand is an object used for directing specific intentions, much like a talking stick. The amber quality reminded me of ancient bugs that become trapped and preserved, and I thought that this was relevant to my research as well as being aesthetically pleasing. After I realized that I could preserve with it, I continued working with the material just by itself, and through this melting and dripping of the substance I became more interested in the material than I was in the insects as objects that I was trying to preserve with it. The metaphors that the bugs were attached to continue to inform my process.

The resin, when cooled, became very fragile, and was also very sensitive to climate. It became sticky and would melt into a blob just from being in the hot Florida sun all day. I decided that I should still begin my attempt at preserving my moth with this, albeit apprehensively, considering that I could easily destroy it. I first set the feet and belly of the creature, and planned to slowly build the resin to cover the whole thing. I put it in the freezer to avoid the decay and drying of the moth. In turn, the resin cracked into a dust, ripping the legs and underbelly of my moth off with it. This was depressing to me as now i was left with a mangled skeleton. I had already done damage by capturing it in the first place; you could even see my fingerprint on one wing and a tear in the other. This failure left room for much contemplation about harming this seemingly insignificant creature. It had done more trauma to me than I had imagined, maybe because it was attached to a larger project which got me thinking so hard about it in the first place, or maybe because the feelings that I had were attached to larger metaphors.

I realized that the resin was most interesting when it melted and moved, dripping onto the surrounding environment as it was pushed around. Heat moved through the material, slowly sticking one chunk to another and fusing them into one mass of molten amber. Heat is a strong force of nature, as are thought and influence in humans. The resin began to imitate my own actions, and became a medium for me to think about humanity and life as a whole again; beautiful but fragile, natural and unnatural, the ability to morph and change through different circumstances and times. The whole could preserve or destroy, and whichever force has more power is the winner. The weight of this personal experience could be alleviated by seeing the suffering in the world as a whole, but more than anything the realization makes this suffering all the more real. Violence speaks not only about the group of people involved, but of humanity. Like ripples in water, every action creates many reactions.

The copal was much more stunning when it was in motion, as was the moth. What use is an object that must be handled with such care as a moth in this resin, would it be a metaphor or a trophy at that point? The moth couldn't come back to life, and I did not want to preserve it in a way that gave the illusion of life anyway. When the resin is static and cool, it is fragile and breaks into individual pieces, but when it is heated, it becomes kinetic and alive. This visual is very opposite of a motionless moth trapped in a rock. The only logical next step for me was to join the moth and the resin in a sort of ritual, as an observance of this iteration. I began to construct a tool which would melt the resin as well as serve as an altar for a ritual burial of the moth, as a motion of respect. Copper is alchemically representative of femininity, as opposed to steel, which is masculine. Copper is usually warm and comforting and used aesthetically in these ways, while steel is stronger, cold and structural. I took copper pipe and cold forged it until it seemed fragile and natural like the legs that were once attached to my female Luna moth. The Triangle in the middle represents moon cycles, and cyclical nature of life in general. Once the resin is heated enough by the coals underneath, it will begin to drip from the 3 corners of the triangle. The individual chunks of resin will become one, and the moth that is placed on top of this material will slowly become buried within it. I am allowing the moth to forever be a part of this material, and am keeping the material pure by letting it drip onto a square of glass. Over many meltings, the moth will fragment and become dust inside. I am showing this process live because I feel that it has the potential for a greater impact on my audience than showing a video, though I will be taking a video as well for documentation purposes.