Jan 30 - May 17, 2009
Craft Alliance
St Louis, Missouri, USA

Readers of the New Testament may recall that John the Baptist survived in the desert on a diet of locusts and honey. While this conjures a mental image of honey comb and wriggling, unwilling grasshoppers, biblical scholars believe that this should not be taken literally. In all likelihood he ate date honey, a puree created from crushed dates and bread made from flour of the bean of the locust tree.

 “A plague of locusts” is another biblical reference and often used to describe a crowded threatening situation. Locusts are in fact a swarming type of grasshopper that travels great distances and leave mass destruction of  the crops they ravenously consume on their journey. I grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario and having no experience with such insects I always thought that locusts must be cicadas. To me they seemed frightening because their screeching was so loud that there must have been thousands secreted in our garden. I found their hidden presence ominous.

Fear is a common reaction people have to insects. They are so small compared to humans yet their appearance, movement and presumed destructiveness causes us deep apprehension. Culturally, insects are a sign of dirtiness and disease. For the past nine years, I have been creating installations composed of insects pinned directly to a wall in repeating patterns which reference both textiles and wallpaper. When viewers enter one of my installations, they are greeted with something they think they know, that is, a patterned wallpaper which could be in anyone's home. However upon closer examination, one discovers that it is entirely made up of insects.

For the most part our hysteria over insects in unwarranted. Insects play a important role in the health our our environment from the decompositon of organic matter to the pollination of flowers which in turn produce fruit. Nearly 70% of the food we consume is the direct result of insect pollination. Of course another insect product is honey, the nectar of the gods. Honey has not only been consumed but through history has held deep cultural significance and a mulitude of uses. Brides have dipped their fingers in it. Corpses have been embalmed with it. It has even be used as a currency.

Locusts and Honey alludes to culture, history and the environment utilizing two things that are inextricably linked.

SuperBug is a collaborative multi-media print project created by well-known Madison artists Jennifer Angus and John Hitchcock. In this installation that examines the fragility of life and the often deadly beauty of natural forms, the artists combine hand-drawn images of insects with screen-printed layers of lacy patterns composed of viruses and diseased cells.

John Hitchcock's current artwork utilizes images of mythological hybrid creatures and military weaponry based on memories and stories from his childhood in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma where he grew up next to Fort Sill, a U.S. field artillery military base. Hitchcock explores notions of good, evil, death, and cycles of life. His depictions of beasts, animals, and machines act as metaphors for human behavior and cycles of violence. Hitchcock is a professor in the art department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

John and Jeannette Ballantine moved into their new home in 1885. Of there eight children only four had survived past infancy. The youngest of the surviving children, Alice and Percy, joined their parents in the new abode. It is a little known fact that both children were amateur entomologists. They began collecting insects in the garden of the house. Percy eventually became an avid collector of specimens particularly from Papua New Guinea which held a mysterious fascination for him. Within the house one room was dedicated to his insect collection which he arranged in elaborate and fantastic patterns which he felt showed their true beauty. These patterns were not only displayed in shadow boxes hung upon the wall but adhered directly to the wall creating an elaborate wallpaper. Steamer trunks containing insects littered the room and even the linen cupboard was taken over and converted into a specimen cabinet!

Alice Ballantine also had a room dedicated to insects but she had little interest in the study of insects. She was captivated by the colour and shapes and the immense variety of species so cleverly adapted to their environment. She was an imaginative child who loved stories. She day dreamed of the lives of insects underground and upon trees not unlike the characters of Beatrix Potter's books - animals who had families, lives and concerns just as people did. After her marriage Alice began constructing dioramas in which she recreated famous scenes of fairy tales with insects as lead characters. Alice had four children and rather than reading from a book she moved from scene to scene telling the story slightly differently each time.

The Textile Museum of Canada, the Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College and the Musée d'art de Joliette are proud to present the first solo catalogue of Jennifer Angus, a multidisciplinary artist who is also a teacher, writer and curator. This catalogue documents three remarkable installations in the series A Terrible Beauty: "Creature Comforts," at the Textile Museum of Canada from November 26, 2005 through May 14, 2006; "Compulsion and Repulsion," at the Dennos Museum Center from December 10, 2006 through March 4, 2007; and "To Have and to Hold," at the Musée d'art de Joliette from September 23, 2007 through January 6, 2008.