My little wasp has caused a buzz on my Facebook.
An artist sent me this photo of a dress made for the actress Ellen Terry . It is covered in metallic green beetle wings, and has recently been restored to its former glory. I shall be close to Smallhythe Place this weekend so will try to drop in and study it.
John Sargeant painted a portrait of Ellen in the dress so I guess it must have been well known in its day, although I see from Google that in many parts of Asia it was an art making beetle wing material for the wealthy.
One of my best Google finds was this wonderful Victorian beetle wing tea- cosy!!
I keep the insects I am drawing and now have a growing collection of dead insects silently waiting for me to work on an installation ………..maybe dead insect tea- cosys is the way forward…………
