In a story reminiscent of Charlotte's Web, a spider is helping a Malakwa artist make a name for herself with unique pieces using nature.
A number of factors have helped shape Isabell Weitman's art, most notably her resident spider Gary, and a diagnosis for dysautonomia – a nervous system disorder that affects automatic body functions like blood pressure and heart rate.
“I’ve always had such a variety... art and music have always been my two things that I revert back to, "the German born, Revelstoke raised artist said. "Especially, when I got quite sick, I wanted to be able to do stuff that I could just do on the couch. Painting got to be a lot harder because the pieces I work on are quite big so I couldn’t just sit comfortably.”
Unable to sit still and do nothing while trying to get better led to her current work that is more manageable, and gives her purpose while combining two of her interests and passions. That includes incorporating things found in nature, which led to her collaboration with Gary.
After seeing people online making fake spider webs, she gave it a try but found it frustrating and never really authentic-looking. That led to her experimenting on getting real webs to stick to the canvas and, after a lot of trial and error, she found success. Weitman spray paints the web white so it stands out more, then holds the canvas as close to it as possible and sprays a clear coat that gets it to stick.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions... about spiders, but if you think about it, they’re artists themselves,” she said. “What they’re doing, those spiders are insane, the intricacy, the fact that they can make something so cool.”
Though Weitman outsources some webs from her walks, Gary has became her “main guy” as he lives attached to their barbecue on the deck in a mutually beneficial arrangement.
“I think he’s a trooper," she said. "It was actually pretty cool, I got to pet him the other day. I mean, I don’t think he liked it, didn’t consider it a petting, but I thought it was pretty cool.”
She’s also considering getting an aquarium for him to live in for the winter, noting that as she works at the Shuswap SPCA, it wouldn’t be the strangest animal she’s brought home. That includes an ill woma python that was surrendered on Christmas Eve a few years ago.
Though Weitman enjoyed her foster snake Tiptoe, once he got healthy and grew a bit, he got “sassy, he was the sassiest snake I’ve ever met,” and was adopted by someone better equipped to house him. Prior to that, however, Tiptoe also contributed to her art with skins he had shed.
Weitman also uses bones, skulls, rocks, a cool stick, honeycombs and bee hives “really anything you can find in a forest” in her art. Her coolest find to date was a fully intact moose skull and spine, which she has yet to incorporate into a piece of art. She also uses pine cones to create flowers as a cross-section naturally has that look, dried fruit and flowers and more, then mixed with thrift store finds to create unique works.
Weitman regularly finds these treasures in nature while walking her dogs, and has “trained my husband” to do the same, such as the dead dragonfly he recently found at work that is now starring in its own piece of art.
“I just like, I don’t know, giving things a second life," she said. "I don’t think necessarily because something is dead, that it’s the end. Like, there’s still so much beauty in death, and what maybe normal people wouldn’t see, and I like that.”
Weitman really honed in on this nature-driven art about three-and-a-half years ago when they bought their house and property in Malakwa primarily because it provides “the space for me to collect all the things.”
After exploring different techniques and mediums, and discovering that knitting and sewing are not a fit, this style has become her niche.
“I think in the last few years it’s really come together, and I’ve found me in my art.”
While it's a unique take on nature and art, Weitman is finding a following. She participated in the recent Sicamous Harvest Festival, just the second event she's attended with her art, and sales made there helped make her “hobby” more of a real pursuit.
“It truly wasn’t until this one that people bought my things and I was like, oh my god, I’m like a real artist, and it was kind of like having a purpose again in the midst of everything. It kind of makes it feel real," she said. "I had that realization... that, like people bought my stuff, and it’s sitting in someone’s house. My stuff is sitting in someone’s house!
“It’s surreal still.”
Her work can be found on Facebook under Wietman Paw-tography.
