Alexander has been collecting many of the red admiral butterfly wings from the grass under the pear trees where they lie like colourful scraps of paper, abandoned and fading. He has also sellotaped them in a pattern onto a sheet of paper and inspired me to do the same in my sketchbook. I started coating my dead insects in copper powder today and having learnt that if I corrode them whilst pinned the pins themselves rust away so now I am tying them to thread and suspending them in jars. I plan to copper coat all of the dead insects I have found this year and although I am then oxidising the coating, this cases and mummifies the specimens and renders them more permanent and unified as a collection. A beautiful day, apparently the third hottest of the year and quite extraordinarily sunny for October and after lunch we all went to Bath and collected my artwork at the end of the 'wunderkammer' exhibition.
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