SMALL CREATURES (AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT)
OIL ON CANVAS

dimensions:
24” x 36”
61cm x 91.5cm

A homage to the insects and other small creatures, including spiders and small reptiles, that are in catastrophic decline due to human activity.
The painting includes extracts from a poem by Thomas Hardy, written in 1899 when insects and other wildlife were still abundant.

AN AUGUST MIDNIGHT

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter - winged, horned, and spined -
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While ‘mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands.

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.