I had two notable
encounters with spiders this year and both occasions put me in mind of Robert
the Bruce and the Spider. For
those of you who know nothing, Robert the Bruce was defeated by the English early
in his career and went on the run.
Hiding out in a cave, considering his next move, Bruce spied a spider
making a hash of attaching its web to the slimy cave wall. The determined little arachnid
persevered and eventually succeeded.
Robert the Bruce thought “Fuckin aye” and went on to kick some English
arse at the Battle of Bannockburn.
I have been making a
tenacious effort to make a living as an artist this year. One fine November morning, I cycled to
the studio, burst through the door with my usual positivity and joie de vivre
and discovered a massive garden spider on a brand spanking new web anchored at
3 points to paintings that I wanted to work on that day. Being a softy and slightly
arachnophobic, I let him be and admired the stunning web that it had
efficiently constructed overnight; a more evolved specimen than Rob’s. Unable to work on my paintings I
embarked on a net drawing, and what a stunner it was. “Thank you spider” I thought, “I too can weave lines into
visually appealing patterns.”
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| Inspirational - Studio Spider |
However, this is not
the moral of the story. When I
flung the door open the following morning announcing “Salutations Spidey!” I
was greeted by an eerie silence.
To be honest, I always am, and the spider was not a talkative
fellow. The quietness in this
story represents the spider’s absence.
Not only had the spider buggered off but it had also completely
dismantled its web without a trace.
Gone. The conclusion I drew
from this experience was that the spider was simply outdone by my net
drawing. The studio ain’t big
enough for the both of us. No
matter how fine a web you can weave, how tautly you tether those lines, someone
else will do a bigger and better job.
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| Inspirational - Nat's drawing |
It gets worse. While teetering atop a ladder scraping
wallpaper off the ceiling in my new flat, I was horrified to be at eye-level
with a spider that resembled a plump black grape with legs. These babies have 13 eyes or something;
I simply didn’t know where to look.
This spider was more like Robert the Bruce’s, struggling with its web
and probably vaguely disgusted by the dark purple, textured wallpaper. I kept an eye on it and continued with
my scraping thinking “If that fat-ass spider can make a web, I can scrape off this
bleeding wallpaper.”
Once again, I had
interpreted the moral of the story all wrong. When I returned a couple of days later, that spider was on
the floor, dead. There’s no use in
building a web in a room with no flies.
I felt guilty because I should have thrown her out, but I didn’t want to
on account of the legs/eyes/body situation. I continued to scrape the walls and 8 hours later, still not
finished, I brushed up the paper and realised that the spider, wait a minute,
the spider…had burst. Its legs
were stuck to the floor and its body was a raisin in the brush bristles. When the builder came to quote for the
work on the room he told me not to take any more wallpaper down, it was a waste
of time.
So how can we look
forward positively for the coming year as spiders and artists? “There is no use in building a web in a
room with no flies” is an exhibition title waiting to happen. Strategy is important. Where do I build my web to both have a
comfortable home life and catch a lot of insects? What kind of insects would I like to catch? There may always be another spider
making a bigger and more perfectly formed web, but guys, each web is
individual, there’s space for lots of spiders. Besides which the bigger the spider the more risk there is of
being taken by a bird or being too fat to stay on your web. Now there’s positive spin.
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