The Weaver, 2024, Watercolour and yarn installation, dimensions variable.
Only female European Garden spiders create orb webs and meticulously make a new one each day. Their webs are organized and geometric, yet before she lays her eggs, the egg sac she creates is much looser, made up of layers of the same silk threads used in the construction of her web. After laying her eggs, She closes the sac and remains near it until she ultimately dies shortly after. From a human perspective, there is something so tender about how much work the European Garden Spider puts into her spiderlings, only for them to never meet. In Spring 2024, a European garden spider chose to weave her egg sac right beside my front door and by June hundreds of little garden spiderlings emerged. Eventually, they dispersed, but months later in the fall, another female Garden Spider moved in. I am left wondering if she was one of those little spiderlings I met months ago.
I chose to make the egg sac into a sculptural element out of yarn. As stated, the creation of spider webs and egg sacs is only done by female European Garden spiders. Similarly, yarn is used in knitting and crocheting, which are historically viewed as ‘female’ crafts. Both these are a gendered act, tying them together in a sense; furthermore, my yarn vessel can be viewed as a ‘craft’ whereas the rest of this work would be seen as ‘fine art.’ The difference between the two is that craft is born out of functionality, whereas fine art is created more for aesthetic or intellectual value. The exclusion of craft from fine art can be tied to a patriarchal way of thinking as mediums due to those who historically engaged with sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting and more. Incorporating ‘craft’ into this work is my way of challenging the division between craft and art.
Spiders have a reputation for being grotesque and scary to most. I grappled with how to make my spider more palatable, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to do so. Upon some research on spiders in children’s books, I saw a theme of either making spiders super cute or turning them into monsters. I do not see the reasoning for turning these beings into monsters, as it perpetuates a fear of spiders. For this reason, I wanted my spider to look real. Given her scale, I am aware she may come across initially as eerie or grotesque, similar to the reaction most people have to spiders at first. I hope that as the audience engages with this work, they can put their preconceptions aside and see the tenderness I hope to convey by depicting a mother spider and her spiderlings.