i don’t know how trends start. i do know that two potential clients in the last two months have asked me for insect photos. in my very limited world, that constitutes a trend. there is also a current of thought in the sustainability movement that has begun pushing the idea of insects as the most humane and sustainable form of protein, such that this previously unthinkable notion has made it into what i might call the outer edge of the outward fringe of the mainstream. if bugs are about to find their place in the sun, metaphorically speaking, then i have spent a lot of years as an unknowing trendsetter, sweeping up and preserving the remains of exhausted insects from my kitchen floor, after they have failed to fly through our skylights into the summer air. or, as e.o. wilson much more eloquently put it, when asked for his thoughts on the nature of god, “well, he must have been inordinately fond of beetles.”

collection of moth and butterfly wings

saint paul, minnesota