The Amazing Stuff

We get that insects and other crawling beasties might not be your favorites. But when they’re made by hand out of glass, they become infinitely more charming. And that’s why we love the work of Nikita Drachuk, who runs Glass Symphony over on Etsy.

The shop sells these adorable, lifelike figurines.

They’re the right amount of creepy-crawly, but they’ll stay put on your shelf.

And if spiders and insects are still too creepy for you, even in glass form, there are plenty of other critters to choose from.

Drachuk uses a technique called lampworking to create his animals.

It involves heating rods of colored glass until they become soft and malleable. Then, using a variety of tools, he bends, stretches, and molds the glass into any shape.

And we do mean any shape.

Differently colored glasses are also used to create stunning patterns and textures.

They’re even more impressive when you consider that most of Drachuk’s pieces are only about two inches long.

And this little rat is even smaller, not counting the tail.

But they don’t have to be complex to be impressive.

(via Colossal)

You can see much more of Drachuk’s work on his Etsy shop, and maybe even pick up a critter of your own!

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Take a good look at the sumptuous wallpaper in this room. Take a really good look. The bright magenta hue itself is inviting, but once you get past that, get right in there and have a look at those details.

When you get close enough, you might want to recoil.

That’s because these designs are all made from dead insects.

Yep. Those are all bugs.

This installation is the work of Jennifer Angus, an artist and professor of apparel and textile design at the University of Wisconsin. She was inspired by the beauty of insects after a trip to Thailand, where she encountered “singing shawls,” which are traditional shawls with tassels made from the iridescent green shells of beetles. Combined with her fascination with textile patterns, the shawls became the foundation of this installation.

The inspiration resulted in several installations, the most recent of which is housed in the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery.

In this installation, Angus used the bodies of over 5,000 weevils, cicadas, green stag beetles, and other insects to create the pattern seen here.

So many bugs…

Angus is careful to use farmed insects when possible to avoid damaging ecosystems.

She also reuses as many insects as possible, keeping them carefully pinned and stored between projects.

If they become too damaged to display, Angus also donates them to schools so that kids can explore insect life.

In case you’re wondering, this vibrant pink background also has buggy origins.

It’s created from the cochineal — an insect that produces a vibrant red-purple pigment.

But if you’re worried about the ecological repercussions of using once-living creatures for art, Angus discusses these concerns on her website.

In fact, Angus hopes that educating people about the huge variety of insects on our planet will inspire more people to support the conservation of rainforests around the world.

(via Slate)

If you’ve only thought of bugs as being gross, artwork like this is here to change your mind. They might be creepy and crawly, but the insects with which we share a planet can also be strikingly beautiful, and they remind us that there are habitats beyond our own that need to be protected.

You can see more of Angus’ work on her website (which includes some pretty awesome games, too).

These days, as you’re well aware, technology is everywhere. But with the constant onslaught of new inventions and upgrades, we’re generating more and more potentially harmful waste. Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a major problem, especially when it comes to devices that contain heavy metals. But even the more harmless components — like the wires and plastic — have to end up somewhere.

Instead of letting these materials end up in a landfill, artist and sculptor Julie Alice Chappell turns them into something new. With her help, motherboards and wires become delicate, nature-inspired figures.

Chappell opted to use discarded materials like these as part of her work “because they comment on the accumulation of cultural debris and become their own subjective universes.”

She enjoys using the geometric forms of computer components when creating organic shapes, as many of the forms and formulas that make up technology are, in fact, found in nature. Her sculptures speak to both the disconnect of human activity from nature, as well as its inextricable tie to it.

While her work is beautiful, it also points to the ever-growing problems of pollution, consumption, and materialism in contemporary society. Chappell explains that upcycling is her “response to mankind’s cruelty, exploitation, and ruination of the natural world for financial greed.”

But her work also shows us the hidden beauty you can find in unexpected places. Many people find insects repulsive and see computers as simply being functional. However, by combining their forms, Chappell shows us that beauty can be found in both places. “With all their tiny components, complex circuitry, and bright metallic colors, I cannot help but compare them to the detailed patterns we see when we look at nature up close,” she says.

(via Twisted Sifter)

Chappell’s work is pretty, and there’s no denying the beauty of nature. She hopes that her work will not only charm people with its delicate details and jewel-like colors, but will also serve as a reminder “that the natural world and environment are precious and in danger.”

You can see more of Chappell’s work on her Facebook and Etsy pages.