THE STORY OF SILK
Stephen Shooster, known as Shoosty, pres- ents “The Story of Silk” (2024) at the Shoosty Bugs exhibition in Daytona’s Museum of Arts and Sciences. This 36” square piece, crafted on 18mm silk twill with double-sided printing and hand-rolled edges, delves into the life cycle of the Bombyx mori silk moth and its deep ties to humanity. The artwork, set against a backdrop of green mulberry leaves, features silk moths, caterpillars, and cocoons, rendered with intri- cate vector details that highlight the delicate in- terplay of nature and craft. Shoosty’s choice of silk as both medium and metaphor underscores the moth’s reliance on human cultivation, the
white mulberry tree’s role in silk and paper produc- tion, and the bittersweet sacrifice of silk harvesting, inviting reflection on transformation and fragility. This piece resonates with the intricate silk tapes- tries of French artist Émile Gallé, whose Art Nou- veau works often wove natural motifs with symbolic depth, though Shoosty’s digital approach adds a modern layer. Silk naturalist Henry McCook once wrote, “The silkworm’s thread is a slender chain that binds nature to man’s hand,” a thought that echoes Shoosty’s exploration of this ancient, sym- biotic relationship through his luminous, tactile art.
Shoosty inspecting the quality.
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