It’s Bugged: Insects’ Role in Design @ UC Davis

Karen told me about this exhibit and I knew I had to see it for myself.

In this exhibition we look at two sides of the relationship between people and insects. The first side shows how makers, designers, architects, and artists draw upon nature’s patterns to create beautiful and useful materials and structures. The other side of this relationship involves the collaboration with insects as producers of raw materials, such as harvested silk and red dye made from cochineals. While the insects are (likely!) not conscious of this duality, the outcomes are useful for insects and for people in different ways. This makes our relationship with them complex and compelling.

“The inspiration we draw from the natural world is endless,” said Adrienne McGraw, exhibition curator. ”So the real challenge in the exhibit was focusing our story to the links between insects and textiles and forms. We started by selecting key pieces from the Design Collection and works from collaborating artists. The connection to insects could then be explored. Some of these relationships are centuries old, while other ways people are using insects and insect behavior is relatively new. What’s exciting to me is to think about all the new products, designs, and technologies that are still to come as people continue to be inspired by insects. And what better place to encourage that than a university setting where so much creative work is already going on. I really hope visitors to the exhibit come away with a new appreciation for bugs and their role in our lives.”

While a small exhibit, it was incredibly thorough. Fashion would not exist without this textile- silk. The silkworm is the larva or caterpillar of the Bombyx mori moth, a very economically important insect, being a primary producer of silk. Domestic silkmoths are closely dependent on humans for reproduction, as a result of millennia of selective breeding. Sericulture, the practice of breeding silkworms for the production of raw silk, has been under way for at least 5,000 years in China, from where it spread to Korea and Japan, India and later the West. Who knew?.

I then learned a bit about color, which surprised me. The cochineal (Dactylopius coccus) is a scale insect from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A parasite, native to tropical and subtropical South America as well as Mexico and Arizona, this insect lives on cacti, feeding on plant moisture and nutrients. These insects are found on the pads of prickly pear cacti, then are brushed off and dried. Can you imagine how labor intensive that process is?

Insects in design have meaning. The bee indicates hard work and prosperity. The lady but brings luck and the butterfly/caterpillar represents change, rebirth and regeneration.

The display called From Flight to Fancy had me the most intrigued.

Check out this broach. Wow. Did you know that live insect jewelry (made from living creatures which are bejeweled) are still worn as a fashion accessory? The use of insects as live jewelry has existed for many centuries, with the ancient Egyptians believed to have been the first. The Egyptian soldiers commonly wore scarab beetles into battle as the beetles were considered to have supernatural powers of protection against enemies.

Although live jewelry has featured in Mayan cultural traditions for many centuries, it was not until the 1980s that the Mexican maquech beetle, achieved mainstream popularity as live jewelry. The maquech beetle is a large, docile, wingless insect which is decorated with gold and semi-precious gemstones and is attached to a decorative safety pin by a chain leash. I know what my South of the Border souvenir will be next time (not!).

I was then introduced to artist Ann Savageau, who created two displays for this exhibit. Her “Wasp Trilogy” was crafted by utilizing paper made of hornets’ nests. Each piece of her trilogy layered the wasp paper to create an intricate swirling design with an open space in the center. This sunflower was my favorite of the three.

Savageau also had Totems placed in the back of the exhibit. While credit is due to the artist for her embellishment and paint work, the main attractions of the piece — the etchings “carved” on the large tree branches — are made naturally by the larvae of beetles in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. No two totem poles looked the same, each etching with a different thickness or line shape. Mother Nature is an incredible artist.

With most opportunities, I learned a great deal while Bugged. It was the perfect detour on our travels west.