Cobwebs

 

Being at home so much now cobwebs catch my eye. At first I want to chase them from ceilings with an upturned broom. Guilt surely. But they have their own elegance. They describe the slightest movement of air - a door opened and closed, a brisk walk by, a cough, a gesture. They respond to delicate, unseen currents with a little ballet of silk and dust. I am reminded of that haiku by Issa, “Don’t worry spiders / I keep house casually.”

A few years back Heide Museum showed a beautiful installation, a mobile called Frost, by Japanese artist, Koji Ryui. Drinking straws threaded and assembled into spare, open geometries hung turning gently in the light. Over time a spider started to throw silk between the shapes, connecting one plane with another, creating new abstracts within and between components. I think Koji would have been pleased with the collaboration.

Late Autumn is a good time to find them outside too. Strung across paths, cast like nets upon the grass, holding from still bare branches. 
They are worth examination. 
They are elaborate or spare according purpose and spider.
They catch the eye after rain or heavy dew.

I have read that spider silk was once packed into open wounds to help the blood clot. 

This year in a phenomenon created by the coincidence of early frost and late morning sunshine there was a mass ballooning of spiderlings. My friend Purdy witnessed it as she drove along her local country lanes and then out onto the highway. The young of the Money spider, still tiny but ready to catch their own prey, are driven by instinct to find elevation - a fence post, shrub, telephone pole, even tall grasses. Then waiting for an updraft they cast out a thread of silk and glide to new hunting grounds  - in effect lighter than air - they leave home to build webs of their own. En masse they create, what Purdy later tells me is known as the gossamer effect. An intersection between physics and beauty.