THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510120459
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Visitors to the Stockley Gardens Art Show in Norfolk this weekend will encounter a 15-foot praying mantis looking as if it might have escaped from Jurassic Park.
Its creator, Norfolk sculptor Libby Reid, regards the mantis, upwards of 2 to 4 inches long in real life, as a fabulous bug.
And so do children who learn about it in grade school.
``Some adults, seeing my mantis, call it a grasshopper,'' Reid noted, ``but their children say, `Oh, no, that's a praying mantis!' ''
No wonder they remember. The insect's behavior is as fascinating as its appearance.
The artist has the mantis suspended, as if hovering, so that it peers around a corner of an open-sided beach-tent that discloses dozens of dainty, droll creatures, cunningly contrived, informed by wit.
Reid fashions them of wire, papier mache and whatever else comes to hand for stuffing as she shapes them into ``Reid Works.''
A red ant, only as big as the spread of a child's hand, bears in its pincers a piece of candy wrapped in cellophane. A mayfly has been articulated into an earring.
The mayfly's life is but a day, during which it doesn't eat, Reid said. Her bejeweled dragonfly seems to have just lit, poised, wings shimmering in the sun.
Presiding over her toylike universe of tiny, exquisite figures is the overlord, the gigantic mockup of the mantis. Even its name conveys a sense of delicious terror.
Slim and green, it usually is unseen, seeming just a twig until prey strays within reach. Then it springs.
While the mantis is waiting for dinner, its claws are folded under its chin, as if it is praying, piously; but when it darts and seizes its victim, it quickly becomes a preying predator as it devours the catch.
Disney could well use it as a model for a monster in a science fiction horror film. After mating, the female generally eats her mate.
It also happens, often, that the largest, most successful female devours not only her mate but every other mantis of either sex within sight until she, the fierce matriarch, stands alone.
Reid met the mantis when a friend in New York placed a mantis egg case in her rooftop garden. The case opened; ``zillions'' of tiny predators - devil horses, they also are called - spread through the garden. It beat any pesticide.
Gardens used to be much more vivid, rife with life, until man, trying to take God's place, took a hand with lethal sprays that wipe out everything that crawls and flies.
Stockley Gardens at Olney Road in Ghent will be lovely Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5, teeming with varied art and folks. Proceeds from the show help the Hope House. Having fun, you do good. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by CHRISTOPHER REDDICK, Staff
Norfolk sculptor Libby Reid, whose work will be at the art show,
crafts bugs from wire, papier mache and other materials.
by CNB