I have both rational and irrational fears of many kinds of bugs. But a little over a year ago, I forced myself to paint a millipede etegami to submit to a mailart call on the theme of "Phobias." Ever since then, I've become obsessed with drawing bugs-- even the ones that disgust and scare me the most. Cockroaches, mosquitoes, and centipedes, for example. (I'm still not brave enough to draw spiders.) As I paint them, I discover beauty in the colors and patterns of their construction, and that helps me overcome a bit of my phobia. Just a little bit.
The words are a quote from a poem called The Old Gumbie Cat by T.S.Eliot, from the book titled: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, on which, I'm told, the Broadway musical Cats is based. I've been enjoying the book immensely, and I see a lot of cat etegami in my future...
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