HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) - Some people may find anything that crawls repulsive, including spiders, cockroaches and worms. Vanessa Cox thinks of those critters as the opposite: cute and cuddly.
The recent May Hastings College art graduate raises cockroaches and mealworms, and has three pet tarantulas, a Chihuahua and a handful of cats. She loves and appreciates her critters so much that she even featured her cockroaches and worms in her senior art project.
“It’s just constant that I have all sorts of little critter friends,” Cox said. “You wouldn’t think that a bug could be cute, but they’re kind of cute.”
Her neighbor in her hometown of Rising City was an entomology professor, so Cox was used to being around bugs. She’s loved drawing and cats as far back as she can remember. Cox said her parents picked up on her interest and got her a subscription to “Cat Fancy” magazine when she was a child. She entered a cat drawing contest from the magazine and won, having the privilege to have her drawing featured in the publication.
When she was thinking of a new, artistic idea she said the bug art idea just came to her.
“I’d heard about entomophagy, which is the practice of eating insects, and I was like ’Oh, wow that’s kind of cool,’” Cox said. “Then I started researching it and realized how beneficial it (enomophagy) was.”
She decided to do a series of canvas paintings of desserts. They’re colorful and give off a joyful aura. They even look good enough to eat. When looked at closely, viewers can see each individual bug that is disguised and painted over, giving the dessert its texture. She called her thesis project “The Gingerbug House” and conveyed a statement that eating bugs is an efficient and plentiful nutrition source, The Grand Island Independent (https://bit.ly/2sYQjEQ ) reported.
“I’d really like to open the door to people educating themselves about the benefits of eating insects and what it will do for our future globally,” Cox said. “It’s one of the main answers to solving food supply issues.”
Cox said to convey her message and display her art she wanted to create a happy and inviting atmosphere. She said many people have an aversion to bugs, especially cockroaches, and eating them.
“I did not want it to be scary or gross or repulsive,” Cox said of her display. She said for people to be open to the idea of entomophagy they have to get over the fear and notion that the bugs are scary.
She raised dubia and orangehead cockroaches because they can’t climb glass, they can’t fly, they’re not infestuous and they were easy to care for. Cox keeps them in her house in Hastings on top of her refrigerator and in her living room. She tosses food scraps to them and gets fascinated watching them slowly devour it.
She even created a replica two-story old school diner for her cockroaches, which she also called “The Gingerbug House.” Cox said she bought doll furniture online, assembled it and placed it in the glass aquarium to make it homier for the roaches. She even painted small replicas of her dessert canvases. Cox said if the cockroaches don’t have a place to hide, they get stressed out and start to bite each other, so she had to build some walls in the Gingerbug House.
Cox, who lives with her boyfriend K.C., said a roach got loose one day. She and K.C. were transferring some roaches from the aquarium to the freezer so she could eventually dry them out and paint them onto her canvas. One of the little guys got out and crawled up her boyfriend’s sleeve, causing him to freak out a little and shake it off. It landed on the floor and disappeared. Cox said she wasn’t too worried, since she knew the roach wasn’t infestuous and would need to come back to her in order to have food.
“Eventually I found it sitting on the floor like, ’Feed me! I’m helpless!’” Cox said.
At her senior art thesis showing, Cox had desserts made with bugs available for people to try. She made cheesecake with a mealworm and graham cracker crust, chocolate-covered grasshoppers, brownies made with cricket flour and a few other items. She said she thought she’d end up taking most of it home, but to her surprise, very little was left. She said many people tried at least one item and were accepting of her art and the concept of entomophagy.
She said her high school art teacher is still a big mentor and inspiration. Cox plans to stay in Hastings for a little bit, but wants to eventually move to a different city to pursue her art. She said Hastings College gave her the platform to grow as an artist and find her confidence.
“Just trusting myself as an artist was definitely a growing point for me,” Cox said about what she learned while doing the bug project.
As for entomophagy, Cox said she didn’t eat a lot of insects until she started baking with them, which she plans to continue doing. She said she ordered more cricket flour because she really liked the cricket brownies. She said she’s interested in trying more savory foods with bugs and said she’s heard good things about insect tacos.
“It’s just another ingredient,” Cox said. “I would tell people to just try it and it’ll be OK.”
She said the United States is one of the only countries that has a big aversion to eating bugs, so it’s not uncommon.
“Other people have survived it,” she said.
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