Jan. 12, 2007 Listen to Program on National Public Radio
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Rebecca O'Flaherty teaches a Maggot Art workshop at the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Art in Action ~ Maggot Art Show ~ Rebecca O'Flaherty's Maggot Art Web site
DAVIS—When University of California, Davis forensic entomologist and doctoral student Rebecca O’Flaherty teaches art workshops, she doesn’t bring brushes, palette knives or color shapers.
She doesn’t bring easels or canvas, either.
She brings white copier paper, forceps, and cups filled with non-toxic, water-based paint.
And, oh, yes, she brings maggots.
Maggots? O’Flaherty and her students paint with maggots. Live maggots. Maggots from the blowflies that she rears for her forensic research.
With specially designed larval forceps, they dip the squirming larvae in non-toxic, water-based paint, position them on paper, and watch them crawl, creating color trails. Voila! Maggot Art, the educational teaching curriculum she coined and trademarked after launching the program in 2001 at the University of Hawaii.
O’Flaherty teaches Maggot Art to generate interest and respect for an entomological wonder that’s more associated with roadkills and goosebump chills than art thrills. Since 2001, she has taught thousands of students, ranging from kindergarteners to college students to law enforcement professionals. Her program at the annual UC Davis Picnic Day draws more than 2000 participants. Thousands of others see her work, “Ancient Offering,” commissioned by the TV show, CSI, and hanging on the permanent set in Gil Grissom’s office.
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"Sea Creature" by Rebecca O'Flaherty. |
“This is an extremely interesting and innovative idea that combines very basic biology with art in a form that people can readily access and understand,” said UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey and her major professor. “It provides an entre into the biology and development of insects that people can really appreciate and understand. It was a stroke of genius.”
Some art critics compare the abstract lines of Maggot Art to the work of American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. Some lines are straight and simplistic; others, curved and crisscrossed. The public can view both styles at her Maggot Art show at the Capital Athletic Club, 1515 8th St., Sacramento, open now through March. The show includes the work of her UC colleagues Brandi Schmitt and Charlotte Wacker, contributing artists.
“I love my work and being able to share my love with so many people has truly been a joy,” said O’Flaherty, who wants to become an entomology professor. “I tend to target young elementary students, second and third graders, because I find that at that age, most children are enthusiastic, uninhibited and extremely open to new ideas. They haven’t developed aversions to insects, and we’re able to instill in them an appreciation for and interest in all organisms, no matter how disgusting those organisms may be perceived to be.”
“The beauty of the Maggot Art program,” she said, “is its ability to give hands-on, non-threatening experience with an insect that most people fear or loathe.”
Rebecca O’Flaherty, then Rebecca Bullard, began teaching Maggot Art workshops in 2001 while enrolled in a University of Hawaii entomology graduate program and rearing blowflies. Her student entomology club wanted a community outreach program to teach others about the fascinating world of insects. O’Flaherty’s observation that maggot leave trails across decaying flesh sparked an idea: Why not combine an entomology topic with hands-on art?
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A maggot (center) crawls, making Maggot Art. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
Her first Maggot Art workshop, held in the summer of 2001 at the Hawaii State Farm Fair, expanded into a series of programs in elementary schools and science centers in Hawaii and California. She began offering the program at the UC Davis Picnic Day in 2003, and it’s now a fixture.
“Most people are open-minded,” O’Flaherty said. “The kids are excited and the parents become enthusiastic when the kids are so excited. We’ve had only about five children at Picnic Day refuse at first to participate, but the more they watched, the more they wanted to paint, and they usually did. Most children are so transfixed that a parent has to drag them away.”
Some adults find maggots revolting. “A few parents have pulled their children away with a “Eeew!” and “Don’t touch that!” she said. “One school principal cancelled my demonstration prior to my arrival when she found out about the subject, stating that she felt it was an inappropriate activity for children.”
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
(530) 754-6894
