So, why the heck would I paint the ever so humbly nicknamed, “Mudbug”? Especially at a massive 3′ x 3′ size?!
Well, it turns out that I have a special connection with lobsters and crawfish!
When I was about 7 years old, I was part of a dads & kids camping troop. And each year in Galveston, TX they would host the infamous crawfish boil, where 50 pounds of crawfish were meant to be boiled for everyone to eat. Seeing the tiny crustaceans feeble, but alive in the bag, tiny ol’ me begged for them to be set free. My dad liked the idea and humored me by making a grand spectacle for the rest of the group where we “pardoned” a crawfish — similar to how a turkey is pardoned each year by the US President. After freeing a pair, I did feel better… but needless to say, I did not have any desire to eat crawfish afterward. I think a spark of that moment has carried with me to this day.
The ancestors of this pair of crawfish (as well as lobsters) began 409 million years ago, in an era so deep in the past that it predates even dinosaurs: the Devonian. As in, when humans and dinosaurs were believed to be more or less the same creature: tetrapods, who were leaving the oceans for the first time. Mindblowingly ancient. And they look it, too, inspiring us as subjects for sci-fi and alien designs. Quite literally living fossils, relics of eras long passed. They amaze me, all that considered!
And crustaceans are connected to us humans, strangely enough. As part of their survival strategy, lobsters are exquisitely sensitive to temperature and environment – they can sense 1 degree of difference in water temperature, in order to seasonally migrate. They use their antenna to explore and live their lives underwater with as much nuance as any sea creature. Crayfish even respond to anxiety medication, while prawns respond to anesthetics for pain treatment! (There’s a whole wiki page on this topic: Pain in Crustaceans). Clearly they are complex enough, and have enough in common with us to make these connections.
Yet, it just so happens that we associate lobsters so heavily with food that in search engines they are often not depicted alive in their natural habitat, or at best, they’re out of the water. Our first mental image of them is red, not their natural color, when in fact they only turn red when put in boiling water. Pages upon pages of scrolling past “red” lobsters – from the restaurant name to the cartoons – was unsettling for me. Why do we associate them by the look of their corpses?
Finding photos of the American or European lobster alive is difficult unless searching for a scientific name, like homarus gammarus. But the lobsters-as-food bias runs deep, for even Wikipedia entries fail to flesh out their nuances as living beings, instead focusing narrowly on food topics. This imagery and relationship is so deeply ingrained that often we even lack natural curiosity about them.
And so, “Mudbugs” may well be a fitting moniker for a misunderstood, minuscule creature of the depths. Maybe not as cool as dinosaurs in appearance, but their ability to survive this long as a species begs a closer look.
I think this is an important reason art exists – it encourages us to question these long held relationships, and reevaluate them in a new light. What else are we thinking about in such a limited manner, that we don’t “see the forest for the trees”?
Have you ever questioned societal and human relationships with food or other things, and if so, how? Do you think art is meant to help question relationships like this? I would love to hear your answers!
If you want even more food for thought, I recommend David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster essay.. this painting came about through his work – thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts 🙂