Celebrity Purchase!


Andrew Zimmern, host of "Bizaare Foods" on the Travel Channel, has purchased a few of my framed pieces to give as gifts! What a fun TV show; have any of you ever seen the fascinating and exotic things he eats?? Since my degree is in Anthropology, I find it especially interesting. Since he has eaten so many insects, my pieces were a great fit for Mr. Zimmern!

He gave me a kind mention in his blog; here's what he had to say:



Now that's my kind of art! Recently, I stumbled upon the work of Katie Jennings (VanBlaricum), a Lawrence, Kans. artist and entomology enthusiast. Katie makes pieces using real insects from around the world. I purchased a few pieces from her site, insectartonline.com, as gifts recently, and they are even more gorgeous in person.

Here's how she operates: The insects arrive dried out and all folded up. She re-hydrates the critters to make them flexible again, and then spread thems out on a styrofoam board with sewing pins and little strips of paper. She doesn't put any pins through the bodies, leaving them natural-looking and lifelike. Lastly, Katy picks a cool and artsy background for the shadowbox frame and glue the insects onto that. The whole process takes several days, and each end result is unique, and nothing like those stale displays from your high school bio class.

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