This is sculptor and artist Vivianne Lee Carey. Her latest installation, "Hair of the Dog," runs between now and June 26 at the Artists' Guild Gallery in lovely Spartanburg, South Carolina. Ms. Carey has spent a year studying real fleas and designing giant artificial ones from wire, metal, and tufts of dog hair.
According to the article, Carey's frustration with "pretty" art, along with the never-ending task of sweeping up shedded dog hair at home, led her to this latest creation. There are 56 giant flea sculptures included in the show, each with its own "personality." Ms. Carey has no reservations about her feelings for fleas. "I love them," she says. She mentions an anecdote in which an infestation of fleas saved a few Holocaust victims from being captured by Nazis. That's a great story, but I think the millions of Europeans, Asians, and North Africans who died horrific deaths caused by flea-transmitted plagues in the fourteenth through nineteenth centuries might beg to differ with Carey's assessment of the little buggers. Still, she agrees that ticks are pretty abhorrent.
Enjoy! -z
Photo credit: Tim Kimsey
Posts
Gahhhh! I clicked over just as I was about to call it a night and roll into bed. If I have itchy flea nightmares tonight....
ReplyDeleteI vacuum up bushels of dog fur every week, but it would never occur to me to *make* something out of it. Guess that's why I'm not a flea artist.
Now I'm really scared. What if she does tree roaches? They'd be enormous!
ReplyDelete