Praying Mantis Box

About this work

This box is part of the Lovely and Amazing series. It is wrapped on the inside with papers from various sources including Ruth’s biology note pages, drawings and text from the 1937 edition of Faber’s Book of Insects that have been tinted and, on the outside surface, coated with pigmented wax. The dried mantis is on a stick supported by a stand made of a large chunk of wood (some sort of growth removed from a tree) and a small piece of an unidentified hardwood. The text appears on the back surface of the box, which is of frosted plexiglass. Magnifying lenses magnify the mantis itself, a wasp, moth and fly.

Text that appears on the back wall of the box:

The mantis moves gently,
like a creature in love
though I have seen one devour
a grasshopper slowly - grasshopper
half in, half out of its mouth -
stick arms lifted up
to its mandibles

© 2008
• Dimensions (in inches): 6.5 x 5.75 x 6.5
• Materials:Wood, laserprinted paper, acrylic, wax, cotton, plastic lenses, fly, wasp, moth, mantis, wood, metal, plexiglass, laserprint transparency, steel pins. Glazed with a piece of removable sheet acrylic.
• Collection of:the artist, available for purchase
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