Though the unpredictable, dive-bomb fluttering of moths frightens me, one night during the course of St. Mary’s Project (SMP), I found a moth perched hauntingly still with a damaged wing that I thought was dead and allowed myself to take a closer look. I began sketching, and through the meditative state known to drawing I became absorbed viewing the moth as interconnected forms; powdery, rust colored wings held together by the framework of a fan or fragile wishbone.
When I finally awoke, the moth was gone.
Drawing the moth represented, for me, looking into something unexamined, as I had never studied this creature that I seemed to irrationally fear. It was not in spite of my fear of moths that I chose to paint them, but because of it – I was perplexed by the immense power in a common creature about the size of my thumb to elicit a physical reaction from me and to make me feel uncomfortable. By deceiving me with stillness, the moth had allowed me to see it as intricate designs and varying textures; art became a means of positive means of detachment.
As for the moth, leaving only a sense a mystery with the twinkling light of morning, its’ fate was left to be wondered: would the moth even live?
During my SMP, examining such a small, seemingly insignificant creature has made the divide between life and death more ambiguous. Each piece in my Luna/Sol series represents an intermediary state of change, pushing and pulling from the light that summons it. Though my earlier work also concentrated on the ambiguity of life and death, instead of focusing on natural light’s relationship to obscuring these boundaries, the work focuses on artificial light.
Moth’s circle artificial light because they naturally navigate by moonlight, so their distraction is representative of following a false path on a journey. The tragedy of moth’s death from light is possibly a result of innocence or possibly a result of ignorance, but either way it is self-destructive. In observing moth’s attraction to artificial light, I wrote in my journal,
“The light is merciless, deceptive, man-made. It does nothing but tempt and distract, and ironically, as it lights, it allows the human viewer to take witness. I look at the lights in my art studio and despite my uneasiness of fluttering moths, my uneasiness of even death itself, there is a constant bug funeral hanging above my head to which I am completely indifferent. From this distance their bodies look like abstract patterns or stars.”
Ultimately, the nocturnal moth’s place of refuge is darkness, with darkness usually being associated with danger and the unknown. This place of moth’s gathering, as portrayed in the work Refuge, is safe in that it is a place where a “moth can be a moth”. Overall, moths symbolize the parts of ourselves we are not always willing to show – the delicate, intricate parts of ourselves. When paired with the universal, divine associations of light, moths represent vulnerability in spiritual discovery.
Contrasting my older works with my recent works, I have made some vastly different choices regarding size, paint type, and color choice. With each of the images Flock, Extend, and Refuge measuring at least five feet in both height and width, I wanted the image to impose on the viewer’s personal space; for the viewer to feel small in comparison to the images like the moth itself may feel when confronted with the outside world. On the contrary, some works in the Luna/Sol series magnify moths even larger, but on a smaller surface, inviting the viewer to intimately view the details to consider the world of moths. With Flock, Extend, and Refuge I chose to work in a combination of acrylic and oil paint to play up the lightness and heaviness of each medium, and to contrast a drier look with a more luscious look, respectively. Whereas in the Luna/Sol series I stuck to primarily oil paint and built it up slowly in layers to focus on the illumination of light. Another change was working in black and white on Flock, Extend, and Refuge, which allowed me to play up the contrast or shading, and therefore drama, in each piece and concentrate on the idea of darkness verses light, while the works in the Luna/Sol series use colors that are symbolic of the vitality of life.
