{"id":20040,"date":"2021-08-10T20:23:58","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T00:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=20040"},"modified":"2021-08-11T00:27:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T04:27:30","slug":"big-bugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2021\/08\/10\/big-bugs\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Big Bugs\u2019 At Portsmouth\u2019s Green Animals Topiary Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fall of 1990, David Rogers was staying at a cousin\u2019s farm in Vermont\u2019s Green Mountains when he spotted a maple sapling bent from an ice storm the previous winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something about the curvature and posture of this particularly ravaged tree\u2014a backbone to a large beast, perhaps\u2014that suggested a new life for the tree,\u201d he later said.<\/p>\n

Rogers transformed it into the spine of a wooden dinosaur\u2014and began making other wooden creatures. His \u201cBig Bugs<\/a>,\u201d large wooden sculptures of insects, debuted at the Dallas Arboretum in the summer of 1994. Over the years, Rogers has created some 40 bugs, with two sets of sculptures traveling the country in exhibitions, and others retired.<\/p>\n

Through Oct. 3, \u201cBig Bugs\u201d is at Green Animals Topiary Garden in Portsmouth<\/a>, Rhode Island, which is operated by The Preservation Society of Newport County. (Admission is included in regular admission.) Visitors are greeted by an 18-foot-long praying mantis that stands in front of the ticket office. A 10-foot-long damselfly perches over the fish pond. A 10-foot-tall daddy long legs stands in the cutting garden.<\/p>\n

These and the assassin bug, bees, hummingbirds and spider elsewhere in the garden provide Green Animals an occasion to ask: \u201dWhy should pollinators matter to you? We cannot live without them! \u2026 Wild flowering plants depend on these native bees, flies, butterflies, moths, bats, birds and other animals to reproduce.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""Praying<\/a>
“Praying Mantis” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rogers was born in 1960 and grew up on Long Island, New York, where he still lives. He took classes in ceramics, glassblowing, and woodworking, then spent several years working for a wooden sailboat maker and a cabinetmaker. He also found work restoring wood in Victorian homes. Inspired by a man who built rustic furniture, at age 25, Rogers began making his own wooden furniture and garden sculptures.<\/p>\n

Rogers sculpts his creatures from \u201cfallen trees, selectively harvested green saplings branches and other sustainable forest materials,\u201d the Preservation Society writes.<\/p>\n

He roughs out the shapes with a chainsaw. Then builds the insects over a wood and steel armature, that holds the pieces together during the process. He bends, molds and shapes the wood. Black locust becomes a praying mantis, grasshopper, and bees; eastern red cedar turns into a dragonfly; golden willow becomes dragonfly wings, a spider web, a bee hive and parts of ants. The legs of the ants, daddy long legs and assassin bug are built around skeletons of steel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I go out into the forest I am looking for shapes, colors, and textures,\u201d Rogers writes. He collects \u201cfallen or dead limbs, branches, twigs, and trunks,\u201d wood in which he sees the shapes of creatures. \u201cThe inherent uniqueness of these materials, their different shapes, colors, and textures, provide these sculptures with character, definition, and a sense of motion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, nature, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, (hopefully) weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2021 or the respective creators.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\""Daddy<\/a>
“Daddy Long Legs” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Bee<\/a>
“Bee and Skep” by David Rogers in “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Bee<\/a>
“Bee and Skep” by David Rogers in “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Assassin<\/a>
“Assassin Bug” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Ladybugs"<\/a>
“Ladybugs” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Hummingbird<\/a>
“Hummingbird and Flower” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Damselfly"<\/a>
“Damselfly” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Bee<\/a>
“Bee and Flower” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Assassin<\/a>
“Assassin Bug” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Damselfly"<\/a>
“Damselfly” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\""Daddy<\/a>
“Daddy Long Legs” in David Rogers’s “Big Bugs” at Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, August 2021. (\u00a9Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the fall of 1990, David Rogers was staying at a cousin\u2019s farm in Vermont\u2019s Green Mountains when he spotted a maple sapling bent from an ice storm the previous winter. \u201cThere was something about the curvature and posture of this particularly ravaged tree\u2014a backbone to a large beast, perhaps\u2014that suggested a new life for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,104],"tags":[917,918],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20040"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20047,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20040\/revisions\/20047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}