Spiders Then and Now
My work is often inspired by the close relationship between tattoos and the honoring of plants and animals by other cultures, both past and present.
At the Brooklyn Museum is a small exhibition of jewelry, pottery, hunting tools and other objects of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Pre-Columbian time. One of the objects is a gold Chiriqui pendant of a spider whose legs end in human hands. This pendant served as an active extension of its owner, like tattoos, and a communicator of awe for a creature of nature.
An artist whose work includes spiders is Louise Bourgeois who saw spiders as elegant, fearsome and protective.
