The third God that will be featured in the spider-based designs of this project will be the ancient Egyptian god Anubis, in the form of the character ‘Mr Jacquel’ (American Gods Wiki, n.d.). This particular god represents death and the afterlife, in Ancient Egypt he is depicted in the form of a jackal, hence the clearly influenced character name used by Gaiman (2001) in his novel of which the show American Gods (2017) is named after and based upon.

   The artist immediately thought of the Black Widow spider as an interesting aesthetic choice for giving a variety of spider ‘looks’ whilst being influenced by the topical choice of ‘death’, as the Black Widow is infamously portrayed by media as highly venomous and eye catching-black, red and shiny with an interesting ‘hourglass’ shape on it’s underside of the abdomen- see image 2 (Clipart, n.d.) This genus of spider attracts the idea of a very ‘stylish’ setting of a harsh contrasting backdrop for the photography-stark white. The artist however, discovered in initial research, that the typical North American Black Widow despite being highly venomous does not account to many human deaths from bites as initially expected-in fact there’s no recorded deaths in North American history-though it is considered to be deadly to vulnerable humans, such as small children and the elderly or ill (Britannica, n.d.) in the common-to-find areas. It is the Australian Redback-see image 3 (Britannica, n.d.) that is much more dangerous to humans-with a similar coloration to the American Black Widow, but the red pattern on the reverse of it’s abdomen-hence ‘Redback’ it is also known as the Australian Black Widow- hence the ambiguous title of this blog! This Latrodectus hasselti has been reported to have killed a human adult as recently as 2016 (Newsweek, 2016) - though this was the first death reported since the antivenin was developed in 1956. The only spider known to be more deadly to humans is also Australian (maybe not surprisingly!) and is the Sydney Funnel Web spider. The artist did not choose this spider type as it’s body and colouration is not as eye catching as the Widow-type of the Redback, and the choice of which supplied a variation of potential practical make up application techniques to the others chosen. The initial ideation is to create latex body-suitable paints to achieve the glossy black and red shine, or to use methods of illusionary body painting techniques to make an effect where matte body paints looks wet-looking and smooth by using white highlights.

     As this is an initial blog collection, the artist’s ideas, design and research are still developing and there will likely be further research performed on Redback spiders and Mr Jacquel throughout this Major project that is not currently featured here, efforts to add and update this blog throughout the process will be made.

    The practicality of planning and creating this design will be covered in blog 8.

 

References

American Gods Wiki (n.d.) Mr Jacquel/Series [Online]. Available at https://americangods.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Jacquel/Series (Accessed January 12th 2022)

Britannica (n.d.) 9 of the World’s Deadliest Spiders [Online].Available at https://www.britannica.com/list/9-of-the-worlds-deadliest-spider (Accessed 12th January 2022)  

Brittanica (n.d.) Redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti) [Figure] Available at https://www.britannica.com/list/9-of-the-worlds-deadliest-spider (Accessed 12th January 2022) 

Clipart-library (n.d.) Spider Cartoon Pictures #1904854 [Figure]. Available at http://clipart-library.com/clipart/pToaqgpkc.htm (Accessed 12th January 2022) 

Newsweek (2016) Australian Man Dies After Redback Spider Bite in New South Wales [Online] Available at https://www.newsweek.com/sydney-man-dies-after-redback-spider-bite-446645 (Accessed January 13th 2022)