Phyllocnistis populiella: Arctic Science Conference 2006
In 2006 I was invited to participate in the American Association for the Advancement of Science art exhibit, "POLARities: Aesthetics/Experiments/Observations." This exhibit was at the University of Alaska's Museum of the North and held alongside the international Arctic Science Conference taking place in Fairbanks, AK that year.
Invited artists were challenged to create art that combined an Art + Science viewpoint. All of the artists approached the subject in a different way. I chose to interpret the theme as a research opportunity. I decided to research an arctic science subject, then interpret my findings artistically. I chose the life cycle and destructive feeding habits of Phyllocnistis populiella, the Aspen Leaf Miner Moth.
This small moth has infested over five hundred thousand acres of Alaska, alone, and is documented world wide in circumpolar regions. It overwinters as an adult, emerging with warming spring temperatures, and lays its eggs on the new leaves of Aspen/Poplar trees. The eggs sink into the leaf cuticle and the moth larvae spend several weeks feeding within the leaf surface, eventually emerging to spin a small cocoon and mature to the adult moth, only 5mm long. The feeding larvae create a maze-like design on the leaf surface, hence one of their names, Serpentine Leaf Miner. These mazes inhibit photosynthesis within the leaf and also invite decay and infestation by other insects as the leaf cuticle has been breached. Overall tree health is affected from large leaf miner infestations because the leaves cannot collect enough nutrients during the growing season. Also, leaves bud later in Spring and drop earlier in Fall. There have been some studies indicating inhibited height growth in heavily affected trees. Total tree mortality is still being researched.
In working on this project, I became fascinated with this small, pervasive moth. I chose the subject because I life in a mixed Aspen/Spruce forest and clouds of Leaf Miner Moths would emerge from the leaf litter every spring.
In the artworks created for the POLARities exhibit, I wanted to create a metaphor for the rampant and random feeding habits of the moth larvae with our own human travels across individual days and lives. I coorelated the maze patterns on leaves to the wrinkles we develop on our hands and faces as ongoing records of our life efforts. 'Chiromancy' is the study of palmistry, hence my title, "Phyllocnistis Chiromancy." Also, I superimposed Leaf Miner mazes onto self-portraits, giving each face a specific date to record the efforts of that day.
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