Photo by Ron Morecraft of an installation by Tomas Saracéno from a work by an anonymous spider.
For weeks my carport was Charlotte’s lair. The classic orb spider had spun a glorious, monumental web that sometimes verged on over-ambition, attaching silken threads to my side view mirror which I would carefully detach while complimenting her monstrous beauty and hunting skills. I ducked her prey, katydids and hapless moths, encased and twirling like captives in a bad sci fi movie next to my car door. Our relationship become one of artist and spectator.
I recently visited the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and their current exhibition, more than humans which featured a collaboration between spider and artist. In one piece, Tomas Saracéno had enclosed a spiderweb in a plexiglass cube. Another piece, over eight feet long, contained the work of several spiders who had labored over 3 weeks. As I mused as to whether the spiders had been adequately compensated for their work, whether this could be considered a violation of spiders’ intellectual property rights, or if it was even some kind of anthropomorphic cultural appropriation, I saw my husband photographing, documenting every square inch of the enclosed web. “What the heck?” I asked. “You have zillions of these in your back yard!” How could he prefer this static display over Charlotte’s artistry?
“The lighting is better here,” he waved me away.
We are always in movement. But we don’t notice or appreciate the beauty of our gestures, our reaching, our turning in daily life. An Awareness Through Movement® or a Functional Integration® lesson shines a light on how our movement creates our self-image: we capture something ineffable under this better light. Awareness Through Movement becomes an intentional collaboration with the parts of the web of reality we weave in every moment; not a static image, but a dynamic work of art, like Charlotte’s web, creating beauty and purpose with each gesture.
I do sometimes wonder however, if we are all part of some other dimension’s art exhibit :-).