Saturday, June 20, 2015

Cubist Spiderweb



Because I don't have it, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to take the above photo. I was strolling around my estate grounds, talking on the phone when I noticed a strange spiderweb on the rungs of a beat-up old wooden chair. I must have taken twenty shots that showed nothing on my phone and then more with my regular Canon. I considered stopping and justing observing -- why must we always make a record? It took me about a half an hour experimenting before I hung a black dress behind it and snapped the shot.

Have you ever seen a spider web so ziggy zaggy? I thought it must be a Cubist spider, an eight-legged Picasso or Braque who went rogue, away from concentric circles and into a break-up of form. The web was abandoned, pieces of it hanging and stuck with tiny yellow flowers shed from the tree above. If I remember my cubism properly, that break-up of form makes what is concrete, abstract, and in so doing, changes viewpoint. Is there meaning in that? What we think is concrete can so easily be spun into the abstract. One viewpoint shifts to another. Revolution is sparked.

Just something to think about when you don't have the time.

8 comments:

  1. That is cool, very cool. But I confess. What I am really thinking about is that I am really glad you didn't post the food and tell us how wonderful the book group was last night cause I couldn't come and now I don't have to feel sorry for myself until you do it later...

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    Replies
    1. Joanne! I didn't have the book group last night! I cancelled and we'll be resuming in August.

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  2. 😌 is it entirely bitchy and self-centered of me to say I'm glad?? No answer required. I am a self-centered bitch in this instance.

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  3. Not joking - I think the spider has some sort of brain damage.

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  4. Remember the weird experiments they did, giving spiders LSD to see what sort of webs they'd weave?
    Maybe?
    Owen ran around this estate and the porches the other day finding one banana spider in a web after another. There must be fifty, at least. He was so thrilled that they've come back.

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  5. That is a VERY weird spider. It looks like it's drawing some kind of graph, tracking rainfall or seismic activity. Bravo on the black dress idea!

    OK -- I did some research. Female garden spiders (of the genus Argiope) create large webs with a zigzag feature called a stabilimentum, and male garden spiders build smaller zigzag webs. Maybe that's what you've got? (Not that I mean to question your Picasso comparison. :) )

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_aurantia

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  6. Braque! I used to have a soft spot for him because he was earnest and no one really knew him the way they knew Picasso but he did his thing anyway. He was to my mind the Jeff Bridges of the cubist world, pretty damned awesome but not wild enough for people to latch onto him like they did to Pablo. You take me back.

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  7. why must we always make a record?

    So we can enjoy it too and spend all day thinking about it. And loving it.

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