faux moths

In the summer of 2001, several large Saturniid moths, attracted by the lights on our porch in the night, came to our house. While admiring these moths I immediately thought of the elaborate insect specimen boxes that I have seen in natural history museums and envisioned creating my own. However, I could not bring myself to kill these beautiful creatures.

Instead I sketched them under the lights, photographed them, and then made paintings from the sketches and photographs. I carefully tried to paint shadows below the images to look as if they were in a specimen display box. Nevertheless, the paintings just were not convincing enough for me and they sat on a shelf for several months.

That winter I awoke in the middle of the night with a new idea. Despite the bewildered comments from my wife, I proceeded to meticulously cut the paintings out of the watercolor paper. I bent and twisted the paper to mimic the natural shapes of the moths and eventually mounted them with needles in insect specimen boxes. I presented my Faux Moth idea to the Vermont Community Foundation with the hope of assistance in creating a body of work for exhibition and was awarded an individual artist grant in 2002.

I have visited insectaria, researched the taxonomy of the order Lepidoptera, and have collected local butterflies and moths that are no longer living from the roadside and woods around my house. I have pushed my idea of making these pieces look as real as possible. Now I am making the moth bodies out of fur and feathers tied to tiny metal rods. At this point I have a body of work that is sure to fool anyone who is not interested in scrutinizing them closer than a few inches away.

My goal as an artist is to increase environmental awareness and responsibility by showing people the wonder of the living organisms around them, and without having to harm a living thing to do so. I see these faux insect specimens as one of a kind pieces that reveal the unique detail and beauty of these often unnoticed fauna.