I became intrigued by moths soon after I lit some of my “paper walls” from behind. The light made me think of the moths, how they gather at light. No one really knows why they do that, by the way. I have my own theory that I’ll tell you later.

I learned that most moths have no mouths. They do all their eating as larvae. As adults, they only want to have sex.

There is a moth that has a little saw for a nose and it drinks blood. Another moth in China feeds off the tears of the buffalo.

Moths appear several times in the bible, often paired with rust. Moths and rust represent those things ephemeral and earthbound, things that will never get to heaven.

So this is my little paper collection of moth images on little bits of paper dyed, rusted and dipped in tobacco water. I taped them all together to make a hanging paper wall about eight feet square. I like that I can fold up the big piece like a thin, dry blanket. It feels like moth wing material.

I like moths now. I think butterflies get undue glory. A lot of these moths were plucked out of the dust. Oh, and I think the moths go to the light simply because that’s where all the action is.