As the weather starts to warm, the winged things that pollinate and perform acrobatics in the garden are appearing outdoors – and indoors on a host of home furnishings.
Dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, bees, ladybugs and other insects impart a graceful or whimsical touch to glassware, fine china, napkin rings and bedding – so beautifully you almost forget that some of them can be unfriendly.
Many designers draw, paint and otherwise re-create the forms of insects on their works, and real bugs are being used to make fine art – in photographs and shadow-box frames.
The appeal of insects as a design motif has endured for centuries, and it is easy to see why. In Mother Nature’s catalog of creations, the shapes and colors of crawling and flying creatures are as ingenious as they are breathtaking.
Dragonflies and damselflies, two subgroups of the insect order “odonata,” have been used as a design motif since antiquity, appearing engraved on stones dating from 1500 B.C. The bugs have come to symbolize different things to different people.
The Japanese revere dragonflies, believing they embody happiness, strength, courage and success, writes Jill Lucas, author of “Spinning Jenny and Devil’s Darning Needle,” a book about dragonfly folklore.
The fragile-winged bugs appear on samurai family crests and as a motif in Japanese fabrics and porcelains.
The Zuni Indians of North America believed that odonates were magical insects imbued with special powers. Zuni legend tells of two children, a brother and sister, accidentally abandoned by their parents when the corn crop failed. The girl begins to cry, and her brother tries to comfort her by making a toy dragonfly out of corn husks. The toy comes to life and restores the village crop, thereby bringing about the return of the children’s parents.
But the dragonfly is not universally seen as a force for good.
Europeans widely associated the bugs with malevolent forces including snakes and the devil. The British unfairly call the bugs “hos (horse) stingers,” wrongly accusing them of doing the nasty work of horseflies. In parts of America, the dragonfly was called “the devil’s darning needle” after the belief that it could sew shut the lips and eyes of “lying children, scolding women and cursing men,” notes Lucas. “In Italy and among the Dakota Indians, the insects are known as witches’ animals,” she writes.
In China, the dragonfly is “an emblem of feebleness and instability.”
The bee is another bug laden with symbolism. The honeybee alone is a symbol of gods and deities, with references in the Scrolls of the Orient, the Talmud, the Torah, the Quran, the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
“In Christian tradition, the bee was the symbol of Christ, of his forgiveness,” writes Kassi Nelson in an essay on the Web site for the American Beekeeping Federation. “It is also an ancient Minoan symbol of the soul.”
To Napoleon, the bee was a symbol of immortality and resurrection, while Masons regard the insect as a mark of industry, resourcefulness and prosperity.
The butterfly has long been a symbol of flight and freedom. French author and prisoner Henri Charriere had a butterfly tattooed on his chest, leading to his nickname “Papillon” (“butterfly” in French), according to www.insects.org.
The Blackfoot Indians believed that a butterfly symbol tied to a child’s hair would bring sleep and dreams. A butterfly icon on a Blackfoot lodge connoted divine inspiration.
The pages of Funk and Wagnalls’ Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend reveal that butterflies were “thought to be fairies in disguise, who steal butter and milk.”
Whatever insects mean to us now, there are innumerable ways to incorporate them into your home decor. It might be the only time when it’s nice having bugs in the house.
Company C’s Damselfly Bedding comes in pink, blue and a lively spring green. Made in 250-thread count, 100 percent cotton, the pieces are available in sheet sets, pillowcases, duvet covers, standard shams, Euro shams and bedskirts. Sheet sets start around $200.
BloemBox’s line of enchanting seed boxes includes the Butterfly Garden. Inside the cardboard box, decorated with silk flowers and a butterfly, are three 5-foot biodegradable seed ribbons. Plant them as-is and wait for the orange cosmos, dahlia-flowered zinnia and annual phlox in red to bloom. The small Butterfly Garden retails for $18.
Christopher Marley, founder of Form and Pheromone, hated bugs until he saw their artistic possibilities. Marley hires catchers – and does some of his own catching – in regions around the world. He dries, fumigates (to kill parasites) and arranges the insects to create stunning works of art. Each hermetically sealed piece is made using museum-grade materials including eight-ply matting and, where necessary, UV glass. His work ranges in price from about $210 to $1,600.
Cicada Wall Pockets like those from Pierre Deux are a fixture in Provence, where they are mounted beside doorways and believed to bring happiness. Made in the workshop of Louis Sicard, a French potter who first created cicada paperweights around 1895, they are available in three sizes at www.pierredeux.com. Prices range from $35 to $48.
