We are all found, borrowed, produced, reworked, recycled, remembered, discarded, processed, lost, dead, and reborn.
What started as inquisitiveness led to titles such as ‘Hidden Treasures’ and ‘Finders Keepers’. A thought and a whim on the behaviours of snails became a process on what was possible and what could be imagined. The artisanal DNA of these gastropods is enhanced by my own hands with donated beads from another time and space.
The primary artist here is considered as Mother Nature. My own techniques and elaborations are of secondary concern since without her we are nothing. Our designation as artist is a fashionable one brought about only by a favoured position at the top of the food chain. For all our power and might, our manufacturing and technology, our compassion and cleverness, we are all at the mercy of Nature’s happenstance and kismet.
Our philosophical musings are considered unique amongst living things because we cannot conceive of the smaller, the lesser, and the lower having comparable minds. How are we to collect evidence to prove if there is a ghost in the shell? Is nobody able to answer my question: “Do Snails Believe in Reincarnation?”
Melanie Honebone 