H U N T I N G & G A T H E R I N G
colored insect specimens for sale. As
a student of textiles, Angus was also capti-
vated by the traditional Karen singing
shawls embellished with metallic green bee-
tle wings, and after returning to Canada,
she began working some of those same
wings into her own pieces. Unfortunately,
it wasn’t possible to just buy the wings,
and she found dismembering the beetles’
dry, dusty bodies frankly disgusting.
Squeamishness kept Angus’s insect mania
Above and opposite:
Some of the weevils,
beetles, cicadas and
locusts Angus collects
and employs in her
wall installations.
at bay until 1995, when she became friendly
with a group of Japanese children who kept
bugs as pets. Inspired by their fearless
enthusiasm, she began creating miniature
scenes with insects, complete with tiny
costumes and props.
It took a bit of research to find the right
bugs, and Angus found herself gradually
accumulating more and more, identifying
sources and experimenting with species.
As her personal comfort with bugs grew,
she began addressing our common phobias
about bugs, dirt and disease in her work.
Angus started pinning them on the walls
in provocatively beautiful “wallpaper”
patterns—and suddenly needed huge num-
bers of insects. She was lucky early on to
find
Euphnlus bennetti,
a blue and green wee-
vil that is tough enough to be pinned and
re-pinned, beautifully patterned and afford-
able, as they are farmed for the trade in
Papua, New Guinea. “Besides,” says Angus,
“it’s hard not to like a weevil. I love their
funny little snouts.” While she uses many
other species, from grasshoppers, Japanese
beetles and cicadas to the leaf-mimicking
phasmids, the personable
Euphnlus bennetti
remains a standby.
Unlike Angus, most insect collectors
want only one male/female pair of each
species that interests them. There are also
niche markets for rarities and aberrations,
and a decided preference for the big and
beautiful—or, conversely, the big and scary,
although the true insect enthusiast is im-
mune to horror. While many collectors buy
prepared specimens, it’s far less costly
to relax and pin your own, and the numbers
Angus requires make this essential. It’s
painstaking work. Each bug must be slowly
rehydrated in a humidity chamber, gently
unfurled and pinned into position to dry
again. Angus estimates that she can now
pin about 10 an hour, depending on the
species, and that’s just preparation time;
actually pinning them to the wall in pat-
terns is another story. Her breakage rate
is a startling 50 percent, but each part is care-
fully saved for repairs and even obviously
patched-up specimens are still useful for
the far corners. “We’re creating weevil
cyborgs with the mismatched parts,” she
says wryly.
Finding reliable dealers who understand
her work has been crucial-as well as hon-
oring the maxim that you get what you pay
for. One of her worst purchases was a>
apr/maj'09 american craft 065
