Midas and Me Collage

This project began in the spring of 2013 with about 700 silkworms that were placed on cardboard circles with a radius of 10 cm in an attempt to have the silkworms spin as many raw silk circles as possible. In the end a totally random amount of 58 raw silk circles were spun in various shades of golden yellow. From 2013 until September 2014, while the next generation of eggs waited for spring, I embroidered the circles onto a backing cloth in a grid format in reference to Damien Hirst's 'Spot Paintings'. Where Hirst employed assistants to paint his spots, I similarly employed the silkworms, free of the artist's touch. Incidentally the project, intrinsically dictated by nature, coincided with my own pregnancy, a pregnancy fraught with pain, medical complications and emotional turmoil making each circle a struggle and sometimes a punishment to embroider. In the spring of 2014 the hatching of the next batch of silkworms and the birth of my child happened within days of each other. Suddenly I had not just one baby but thousands of worms to feed. Six days after the birth of my son I was out picking mulberry leaves all over the suburbs from the trees in gardens of kind strangers who responded over Facebook to my desperate call to feed the increasingly ferocious worms. In 2014 the intention was to let the silkworms paint their own paths as they struggle to spin cocoons and pupate, a process in contrast to the defined circles of 2013. A stop-motion animation was also made over the two weeks the worms took to spin their web, to not only document the process but to capture the exaggerated futility of the exercise. In the stop-motion animation the silkworms run like maggots across the surface as their golden thread is spun, wasted even, in the production of art. 'Midas and Me' is a trace of effort, beautiful and futile at the same time. Midas, referenced a number of times by Damien Hirst in the titles of his 'Butterfly Paintings', is also referenced by myself here as a reminder that something which could be intrinsically beautiful and meaningful can also in a moment be fraught with adversity, futility, meaninglessness and even death.

Collage:Textile on Soft (Yarn, Cotton, Fabric)

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:38.6 W x 42.9 H x 1.2 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.