‘She Who Waits,’ an original acrylic painting copyright Susan A. Walton of S. A. Walton Studio, Hudson, Florida.

Artist!s note:

This multimedia piece, featuring an arachnid familiar to many American gardeners, includes a web made from fine, iridescent sewing thread embedded in the paint. The little huntress on the web is an Argiope aurantia spider, the name meaning ‘gilded silver-face,’ and they are a widespread, common garden spider in the Americas and even in Hawaii.

One of this spider’s trademarks is the zigzag design in the center of its web called the stabilatum, which they weave into their beautiful, meticulously constructed webs.

When disturbed, they may violently vibrate their web in an effort to shoots away, but mostly they are peaceful helpers in the garden. If captured, they may be forced to bite, but usually they will slip away out of the web, avoiding trouble.

I have never been bitten even after accidentally face-planting in webs while mowing; they just scramble away to safety. When going back the following day, I find the web rebuilt in the same location - only several feet higher- so that it will not be in my way again. This demonstrates that they have a capacity for learning and problem-solving to accommodate the traffic situation in their immediate neighborhood.

This one has chosen to build its web in a Rough-Leaved Dogwood, a small and pretty native tree of the Midwest known for its lovely white berries. I spotted this one while on a nature walk with a dear friend, Rick Hobusch, north of St. Louis, Missouri. Rick is a very private and thoughtful person; he listens carefully as if everything you say is important, can keep a secret like no one else, and modestly never speaks about himself. He minds his own business, and like many of my associates is an enthusiast of archaeology and “primitive”technology in particular. He makes stone blades of flint like those made by earlier cultures in the St. Louis area, and in the course of doing that, goes about the region looking for chert, He is always learning more about history, geology, and nature, finding interesting places. We share a mutual affection for American Kestrels.

He had taken me to his favorite paw paw patch, where we found quite a lot of the sweet fruit ripe for the picking. The woods along the Mississippi and Missouri are loaded with paw paw trees. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are small trees which North America’s largest native fruit, and they have simple but very large leaves arranged vaguely in semicircles and once you realize this, they can be spotted some distance away. The heavy fruit grows in clusters, is pale green on the outside, darkening as it ripens, but best just before the color changes. The inside is yellow, very sweet, and richly custard like, with quite a few large dark seeds. And, he who hesitates, vegetates, because there are hordes of animals gorging themselves on them when the fruit is in season.

Solomon’s seal grew in every gully, and the soil was dark and rich, supporting an enormous number of paw paw trees. They are known to sucker, so if you find one loaded with fruit you can be sure it has many nearby sisters just like it, loaded with fruit as well.

We also stopped to visit a fine tall-grass prairie that day, and along the edges of the prairie, on one side, were masses of these rough-leaved dogwoods bearing clusters of beautiful, white berries.

I noticed the spider tucked back in between two of the trees, and thought of how I would try to render the delicate, iridescent silk of her web with a clumsy paintbrush and paint later, back in my studio, while enjoying those pawpaws.

After many tries with a brush that proved unsatisfactory, I recalled a spool of iridescent thread in my sewing cabinet left over from making a baby quilt for a nephew. Perfect!

- Susan A. Walton

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