We have spent this first full week of April looking at directional forces and circular motion, at themes of evolution and revolution distilled to their most essential meanings. They are fitting motifs for us here, where the weather has warmed drastically and the world has gone green and the air holds both the scent and the promise of rain.
I mentioned last week that we would be spending Fridays this month featuring the ceramic artistry of Camille Bernal. Last week’s post showcased one of her larger works, one that invoked a great and powerful spirit: that of Mountain Lion, one of the big cats who still roam this land.
Today, we feature a work whose guardian spirit is, at first glance, Mountain Lion’s opposite: a small and modest creature, one whose relative size and stature seem insignificant when compared with the great cat.
But in our way, we know that nothing is insignificant.
Everything has its purpose.
Today’s work, a tiny round pot with a mouth raised slightly, olla-fashion, bears the likeness of this small spirit placed at the four directions.
It’s a scarab.
I’ve written here before about the role insects play in Camille’s work, and their importance both to other traditions and to the daily existence of our natural world. As I said then:
Camille once told me that, had she not become an artist, she probably would have been an entomologist. She loves insects, and they inform her work in ways that are beautifully unexpected in an era where they are so undervalued. As I said in the post last year in which we introduced Camille and her work:
Insects, of course, are woefully underappreciated in the art world, as in the larger society as a whole. They play significant roles in every ecosystem, crucial to the survival of the habitat and the other species that inhabit it (including our own). And so many of them, when examined closely, are so beautiful in their own way. Coupled with her other favored motif of the plant spirits, it turns her work into a joyous tribute to our multi-legged, winged, and antennaed brothers and sisters whose existence is too often neglected or forgotten.
At least one indigenous culture, one found on the other side of the globe, shared her appreciation for beetles, particularly these big, bold beetles with the folding wings and iridescent appearance. In ancient Egypt, they were keepers of thresholds of other worlds. In this one, they perform a similar function in much more quotidian terms, and do so mostly unnoticed; we so take for granted the earth beneath our feet that it’s rare that we notice the entire civilizations who live their lives at such a level . . . and yet, our own ecosystems would not survive without their presence and their contributions.
Today, we tend to think of scarabs as belonging to a faraway land — specifically, as gatekeeper spirits of Ancient Egypt — but in truth, they live and thrive in nearly every corner of the world, including our own. They are truly creatures of the earth: The only places where their numbers reportedly are not found are in the oceans and on the icy land mass we call Antarctica. They do manage to survive in the Arctic climates to the north, however, burrowing deep into the soil. There are said to be more than 30,000 discrete scarab species in existence, and their numbers reportedly constitute a full ten percent of all of the earth’s beetle population. In my own homelands, a common one is the June bug.
To most of the modern world, such modest creatures, of such a humble station, are regarded as insignificant at best, and frequently an object of revulsion. Our world should rethink its understanding of these spirits of the earth. Another common scarab is the dung beetle, a creature reviled in popular culture but one that performs an essential role in ecosystems all over the globe by keeping animal waste (and thus, the potential for outbreaks of disease that accompany its accumulation) under control.
And so, in keeping with the themes we’ve been exploring in this space this week, it seems fitting today to feature Camille’s miniature round pot guarded by these small earthy beings. From the piece’s description in the Other Artists: Pottery gallery here on the site:
Scarab Miniature Pot
At the Four Directions, tiny scarabs rest among delicate blue flowers on this miniature traditional-style pot by Camille Bernal. Hand-coiled of earthy red clay, the little pot bears a silky slip in an ivory shade, accented with scarabs and plant life in soft natural colors. Pot stands 2.25″ high by 2.75″ across at the widest point, with a 1.25″ opening across the lip (dimensions approximate). Top view shown below.
Tewa clay; plant-based paints
$125 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
In the photo, the pot is angled so that the scarabs sit at the ordinal points: Northeast; Southeast; Southwest; Northwest. It’s a representation of the Four Directions, but one that differs from the more classic invocation of the cardinal points of North/East/South/West. It doesn’t matter; in some traditions, the ordinal points hold similar power and sway. Perhaps more to the point of our themes this week, the ordinal points are what link the cardinal points around the wheel, the threshold spaces, the interstices, between the obvious dividing lines that mark life’s path around the hoop.
Perhaps that is the lesson for today: to look around, to take note of the world around us, even when we are in an in-between phase. It’s easy to feel stalled, trapped, mired in futility and insignificance. But the scarab reminds us that everything plays a role in keeping our world revolving — and evolving — in harmony.
~ Aji
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