Corn Moon - We Are Each Other's Harvest
Corn Moon 15X38 Pastel and pencil on paper
Silently, each corn harvest, bats protect us.
Bats play a vital role in reducing corn crop damage from corn earworms. The National Academy of the Sciences published research indicating that bats save an estimated $1 billion in crop damage world-wide - and this doesn't count their impact in reducing fungal diseases in corn, as well as many of their other indirect impacts on the health of the plants they protect.
Brazilian Free-tailed bat - Tadarida brasiliensis eating a corn earworm moth
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Iridescent leaves of drying corn
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Corn Moon is based on the harmonic pattern of an Irish fiddle tune The Hare in the Corn, specifically, a performance by Adam Agee and Jon Sousa. The vertical lines represent the guitar repetition of the single pitch D, forming the stalks of corn in the field. The contour of the melody traces the bats irregular flight through the stalks and ears. The stalks are back-lit by a rising moon.
The text refers to a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks about the singer Paul Robeson.
Excerpts from Paul Robeson |