Today, July 17th 2012, it rained in Oakland. Well, it was more like a heavy misting but it was enough to bring out the snails. I hate snails. In elementary school my mother paid me 1¢ per snail I killed. I would collect them in a big bucket, dump them in the middle of the street, and crush them under my bicycle tires. I had an interesting childhood.
I’ve always wanted to do an art piece with snails; partly because their flesh repulses me and partly because I find their shells to be infinitely interesting objects. Which is probably why I’ve been so taken with these two blog posts/creative snail projects.
The Use of the Garden Snail (Helix Aspersa) in a Collaborative Art Practice
I’d love to take a whole bucket of similarly sized snails, paint them each a unique color, and arrange them in a grid ala Damien Hirst’s dot paintings. Watching the snails slither away and organically dissolve the piece would be quite conceptually satisfying and more than a little beautiful. Snails and Damien Hirst – what’s not to love/hate?