Rats

I can hand-deliver this anywhere in NYC after April 30th when the show closes. If you need shipping, please send an email to mari@bymariandrew.com after purchasing :)

OUR BLESSED BRETHREN: Rats

For this piece I used a technique called ‘felted wool painting.’ It is a laborious process, and each one takes upwards of 20 hours to complete. I source my wool from a small family farm in North Dakota which is committed to providing their beloved sheep with a natural and joyful life.

Inspiration:

My first order of business in my new apartment was putting in several bird feeders, as this alleyway was like a strip mall for cardinals, jays, doves, and swallows that swarmed around picking at our flower buffet that I imagine resembled a courtyard of Panda Express, Sbarro’s, and Orange Julis for our feathered neighbors.

I was proud of myself for contributing an extra treat of seed to the birds’ utopian cafeteria, when I heard a nearby window slam open and saw my neighbor Bob’s Santa-Claus-beard emerge from his living room. “Hey Mari!” He called, “Sorry to say this, but bird feeders are going to attract rats!”

The word alone made me wince. “Oh gosh, eww, thank you,” I replied, as though Bob had just informed me that I accidentally hung an offensive flag outside my door. Instinctively, I took down the feeder and flung it into my storage area.

Then, I started questioning. Why, exactly, did I not want to feed the rats? If rats were dirty, bluejays were probably dirty too. Later I would learn that rats are less likely than cats or dogs to catch and transmit parasites and viruses. If rats were dangerously full of disease, most of New York would have the plague.

Is it simply that rats aren’t as pretty as birds? When animals don’t serve a purpose for us (pleasing appearance included), we tend to cross our fingers that they’ll just go away. 

According to most humans, rats are perfectly acceptable to fear, despise, torture, and kill without a second thought. If you see one, it's reasonable to trap it. If you like them, something is off.

I wonder why this started. It feels rather random to me; we set out food to attract sparrows, but god forbid the rats eat it instead! The only food we deem rats worthy of is the bait that obliterates them.

My working theory is that rats are actually too human. While we’d like to believe that we are as selfless and ego-pleasing as dogs, maybe we are much more like resourceful rats, who are social to the point of having a sense of humor and a sense of regret. Is it that rats remind us of the human traits we would rather forget, and that is why we don’t like to see them?

What I think is happening with rats is....

They remind us too much of ourselves. We can't handle it.

Rats only live where humans live. They thrive in cities, among crowds and cramped spaces signaling "Here's where the people are." What we call our "garbage" is their life source: they eat what we eat, they love what we love, they seek refuge where we seek refuge.They find homes in our beloved parks, backyards, subway stations and rivers.

Rats are highly intelligent, particularly in their capacity for emotion. Besides humans, rats are the only animal who can feel regret about their actions. They have extraordinarily sensitive ears and appear to enjoy music, demonstrating strong individual preferences for certain genres.

They recognize each other and display the same symptoms of grief that we do when a family member dies. Their brains are very similar to ours in makeup, and in many cases their problem-solving abilities have far exceeded our own.

Perhaps a part of us intuitively knows that, and that's why we trap them in boxes that we can't bear to look at. It's too hard to acknowledge that this thing that repulses us is so, so very much like us.

Meditation:

Is there a part of you that you shove to the corners of your being because it’s almost too real, too difficult to see in the daylight?