After that, everything began to change. As Sheila became animated, I began to feel that she was more than a spider, and that making a spider was not at all what I was trying to do. A few happy mistakes followed. Soon her front legs became human arms. Arms need hands. Hands express intelligence. Sheila would have a nascent human head. Instead of six eyes she would have six breasts, each breast a tiny drawer (I'll have something to say in the future about vestigual function in my art).
So what was the point, what was the passion, and what was the result? These are hard questions for an artist. The truth is, there was no point in Sheila. No one expected her, no one was waiting for her, no one was there to take her off my hands. Thus she has spent the last two years covered in plastic in a closet at my shop. Currently, through the month of March, she's on display in the gallery at Blue Ridge Community College, in Wier's Cave, Virginia, along with eight more of my pieces on loan from former patrons.