Spiders Then and Now
![A tattooed spider seeming to crawl into an Iris flower. The spider is from a photograph.](https://www.alicegarik.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Spider-Detail.jpg)
My work is often inspired by the close relationship between tattoos and the honoring of plants and animals by other cultures, both past and present.
At the Brooklyn Museum is a small exhibition of jewelry, pottery, hunting tools and other objects of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Pre-Columbian time. One of the objects is a gold Chiriqui pendant of a spider whose legs end in human hands. This pendant served as an active extension of its owner, like tattoos, and a communicator of awe for a creature of nature.
An artist whose work includes spiders is Louise Bourgeois who saw spiders as elegant, fearsome and protective.
![Chiriqui spider pendant in gold.](https://www.alicegarik.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Chiriqui-Spider-Pendant.jpg)