Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

I couldn’t get my mind off of the Giant Driftwood Spider and so I paid an extra visit to see if it was still around…unfortunately it wasn’t.  I was hoping to get better images, but my original ones will have to do.  Its web near my studio spot, however, was still intact and being effective too!  I also noticed that the cocoons were missing and either they hatched, were taken by some other predator, or were moved by spider mom since their location had been discovered by me?  Although the spider pics in this post are a couple of weeks old by now…these latest web images are more recent.

The web can’t have been abandoned for very long.  I was, however, amazed at all the plastic bycatch that had drifted in and been ensnared in the silk.  We have had some strong winds and storms blow through the area and that is my explanation for how all this plastic wound up being suspended off of the ground.  Most interestingly, much of what the web caught has a petrochemical pedigree.  There were a couple smaller pieces of  Styrofoam, but the majority of the bycatch included plastic oil or antifreeze containers.

I must also admit to becoming fascinated by the pictorial possibilities that this web with its bycatch presented.  I liked the idea that I could see these shapes seemingly floating on a screen in front of an image of a greater spatial depth.  I was struck by the “art-like” sensations I was feeling studying this web.    I could see a certain play occurring with shapes and colors and even in the relationships between objects.  Is this not an installation piece?  It made me wonder if it was possible for any other animal to make something we could recognize as being art?  I have always felt that for humans, art was an important survival mechanism.  Could it be for other animals as well?  Wasn’t too long a go , we didn’t think animals could even feel pain!  Surely, we are short-changing them in other ways too?

If I should happen across this amazing arachnid again…I will see if I can test it in some aesthetic fashion.  Perhaps it could draw me a picture in the sand with each one of its eight legs?  That’s meant as a joke…I’m not sure what I would do to tell you the truth.  Here’s one last image and if you look in the upper left hand corner you can see the Off Road Triker sitting on his ride.  Unfortunately, he didn’t make it and was in the world in this configuration a little less than two weeks total before being thoroughly smashed in the sand.  That’s just the way things go some times at the Falls of the Ohio.