Of spiders and silk, of silk and textiles
One of my favorite things about living in Florida is the daily parade of exotic creatures that cross my path. I live a pretty urban existence, but it's not at all an unusual thing to have a small flock of white ibises get out of my way as I walk to the car in the morning. As the white ibises feign their mute alarm (the things are unflappable I swear) the monk parrots in the date palm across the street make a racket that more than compensates the ibises' silence. I love that scene and I love the very routine-ness of these encounters. The creatures I come across less frequently are an even bigger thrill. Out of all of the curiosities I've encountered in the last (almost) 20 years, my all time favorite has to be Nephila clavipes.
Nephila clavipes is Florida's yellow silk spider, variously referred to as a banana spider, a calico spider, a writing spider, a large wood spider or a golden orb spider. Whatever you name it, N. Clavipes is difficult to miss.
As a number of their names endorse, N. Clavipes spins an orb web of unusual coloration. It's a rich, golden yellow and it has to be the most powerful spider silk I've ever come upon. If you see this kind of webs inside the woods, you could pluck the support filaments as if they had been guitar or harp strings. They do not make any noise of path, however those internet filaments feel each bit as robust as the strings in an instrument.
The spiders themselves are harmless to humans, even though they're a bit intimidating. Ever on the grounds that I first stumbled upon one throughout my first summer season in Florida, they've forged a spell over me I cannot quite explain. There's a variety of information out there on them and this tells me I'm not the only one who is fascinated by these beauties.
There are Nephila species located all around the warmer parts of the world and the New York Times broke a story this week about some clever soul in Madagascar who took his fascination with Nephila further than anyone else ever has.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York this week unveiled the world's only brocaded textile woven from spider silk. Simon Peers is an art historian, textile expert and 20-year Madagascar resident. He joined forces with Nicholas Godley, an American fashion designer and fellow Madagascar resident, to recreate and perfect what had been tried and abandoned for as long as there have been human beings around to admire spiders. They were going to make a fabric from spider's silk. It had been tried before in Madagascar, so their idea wasn't without precedent.
100 years ago, a French priest, inventor and educator known as Father Comboué figured out a way to spin spider silk harvested directly from the business end of a Nephila inaurata into a thread. He was said to have made enough of this spider's silk fabric to outfit a bed canopy. Reports differ about how true that story is, and whatever fabric he did create no longer exists. So from the attempts of Father Comboué until Peers and Godley waded back into the spider silk business five years ago, no one had successfully made anything from spider silk.
Peers and Godley perfected earlier attempts through their persistence and tenacity as much as anything. The fabric unveiled this week required the output of a million spiders. With the help of the Malagasy people, Peers and Godley collected upwards of three thousand N. inaurata a day. They would place each spider in a harness and then connect it to the harnesses of 23 other spiders. The 24 spiders would spin a single filament each and the filaments would be wound into a thread and then onto a spool. Each spider could produce a single filament 400 feet long before it could produce no more. Once spent, the spider would be re-released to the wild where it would regain its strength in a day or two and could be recaptured and "milked" again or go about its life.
Once they'd enough thread, they may in flip spin that right into a yarn and begin weaving. Madagascar changed into as soon as known for its intricately woven textiles. Peers and Godley desired to restore the death art of Malagasy textiles and to train a brand new era approximately the weaving traditions in their ancestors. They chose a traditional brocaded pattern as soon as reserved for kings for their venture and commenced weaving.
The men estimate that it price a half one million bucks to provide an 11 foot long scarf, which they regard as a piece of artwork more than an economically viable fabric. Whatever it's far, what they produced is the primary instance of a brocaded fabric hand woven from spider silk ever recorded. It's an pretty an achievement. The shade is the natural, yellow gold of the Nephila species and it's said to be as strong as though it had been woven from Kevlar.
Needless to mention, I'm captivated through this tale and it has me searching at my cherished yellow silk spiders in a whole new mild. I found this video the day prior to this that turned into shot at the unveiling and it functions Peers and Godley describing their work.
If you're in New York, head up to the museum at 79th and Central Park West and allow me understand how it appears in real life. This is just cool.