secret language

8x11”, set of 2

2024

Termites are detritophagous: they eat things that are already dead, left behind to disintegrate. In their bodies, wood is consumed, morphed, changed. Their hunger carves itself into the bark, their communal movement leaving behind a network of shapes. Staring at the termite paths carved in a fallen log in Golden Gate Park, each repeating shape became meaningful  — a word in another language. My hands draw termite paths from memory now — unthinkingly scrawled on the edges of to-do lists and scattered journal entries. Maybe if I write their words enough times, I’ll begin to understand how to move with others as termites do: a vast community acting as one cohesive whole. Everything has something to teach you if you listen close enough.