Moths and the Nerd Princess

One of these fabulous creatures actually clung to the screendoor of my house one hot Georgia night. I had always wanted to see one, since I was fascinated by insects ever since I was little, but never had the chance until we lived in Georgia. It was so lovely, so still, as it worshipped the lights inside the house.  I paid it homage  for 15 minutes, then turned out the light.  It loosened it's grip on the screen and flapped regally, slowly back into the darkness. 

I wonder why moths, as creatures of the night, are drawn to light and often their death because of this attraction. I wouldn't be the first to draw morbid analogies from this.

The above Luna moth, which I painted as part as a chinoiserie room,  rests forever at the top of a wall in West Seattle.  Since the top of the canvas was a trompe l'oeil bamboo border, I put all the chinoiserie creatures, and they are many, toward the top as casting a shadow like the bamboo.

As a girl, I collected insects.  I was an odd shy child, nerdy and romantic, reading anything I could get my hands on and spending the rest of my time roaming the hills and the creek of my hometown, Pomeroy, Washington.  It's located in a sparsely populated S.E. corner of Washington named the Palouse. Remarkable, in part because of its hills, bare of trees but covered with grass or wheat.

I would go fishing with my Dad in the summer and spend a lot of time among cattails with the redwinged blackbirds and the butterflies sipping in the mud at the edges of the lake. At the age of seven, a shirtless brown little savage, I would stoop down and gently pick up the big swallowtail butterflies and place them on my chest and shoulders.  They would walk slowly over my body, attracted by the salt on my skin.
Slightly scratchy, deliciously  tickling, they quietly opened and closed their gorgeous yellow and black wings. They also had a wonderful smell, like the flowers they frequented for nectar.

Anyhow, even at 14 I was out in the bushes with my butterfly net, searching like Nabokov for the rare butterfly.  I even had boyfriends helping me, although I think they were hoping for something else besides butterflies.

The nuns at the parochial school I attended used my etymological skills to capture the black widows that were always coming into the music rooms.  Dad showed me how to put some carbon tetrachloride onto a piece of cotton, place it in a jar, and sneak up on the evil looking spiders and clap them into their jar prison.  They would die, and I stored jars of them in my closet among my pretty dresses and go-to-church MaryJane patent leather shoes.  My sister Megan, who shared my room, swears to this day that I created her phobia about spiders.  She was positive that they would escape and come out to bite us in the night.

My interest in nature and my father and grandfather's knowledge of the land and it's creatures created an encyclopedia of images and names in my brain that I draw on for my painting today. Grandad and Dad taught me the common and the Latin names, and I must confess that some of these names are beginning to escape me, but the images remain.  Indian paintbrush, swallowtail, white tail deer and willow.

I will know their shapes and smells and color and the way they move as long as I live.

Comments

[Aaron Cohen]

Hi Jen,

Lovely post. Lucky moth.

Aaron

[Jennifer Verde King]

I love how you can not only paint beautiful pictures with your brush, but also with your words.
The bamboo and moth are truly miraculous, you have such a gift!