Beautiful Bugs

There's a really interesting post up on the Etsy blog, by Abbey Nova about gorgeous handmade insects. This is right up my alley, having recently had my bee biodiversity show, and also, since I've been thinking about how best to supply a certain museum shop with prints to accompagny their planned entomology show (more on that soon!). Also, I've long been a fan of Elsita who makes magical illustrations, paper cut art and sculptures and writes some lovely blogs too. Her paper bee is featured in the main photo illustrating the article. Nova notes that human-insect relations are often strained, at best, but she puts these lovely bugs into the context of the history of the still-life painting and some of the fascinating ancient symbolic associations we've harboured about insects. Some of these were new to me: ancient Spanish rock paintings of spiders are linked to the moon and fertility; I knew the butterfly could symbolize the soul and bees industriousness, but did not know that the fly and dragonfly in the 16^th and 17^th century Dutch still-life tradition could symbolize the devil or spiritual temptation. She includes a wonderful selection of insect-themed art and I'm flattered to see my bumblebee linocut amongst them. Check out the post and the art. There are some amazing finds. Fellow Mad Scientist of Etsy Sasha of whatnomints even made a beautiful cockroach on her hand-embroidered flour-sack tea towel.