Thursday, October 10, 2013

On Work and Ants.

I have been thinking a lot about work recently. Actually, since before I started the profiteri series of etchings. How people choose a profession, why we can't necessarily make a living from our passions, the joys of working (and specifically of working with one's hands), the psychological necessity to work, the compromises involved in working for a living. I have also been reading a lot about ants since I did the Complex Systems MOOC at Santa Fe. Ants are amazing, and how they work together is even more amazing ...
































Work I - Three Ants (dry point etching)
Yes, yes, don't point out the scale, please! These are meant to be huge ants!
































Work I - Three Ants EV 1 (dry point etching with collage)

I have decided to stitch onto the first etching - ant trails. I caught three ants in the garden and one by one let them walk over a page of the same size and followed the trails with different coloured pencils.

































I hope to finish the stitching this weekend, and will post a picture then ...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have lots of aids for stitching ..... but I have never considered using ants!

Linda Sue said...

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bbc+empire+of+the+desert+ants&oq=empire+of+the+desert+ants&gs_l=youtube.1.4.0l4j0i5l3.5322.15971.0.21544.27.17.0.10.10.0.93.939.17.17.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.fk0U3c0rCMc

When you have time you will not be sorry to watch the desert ants!
I love what you have done here! I just got an ant necklace from my friend "Lady Muck" , it is beautiful and makes people nervous, just my kind of jewelry !