"Care For An Amoeba"
37.5" h x 94.75" w
acrylic, gel medium, oyster shell, sand and sifted dirt on panel
august 2002
Accomodations
have been made to ensure the livelihood
of single-cell animals called amoebas. Leon A.
Housman wrote about
these minute creatures in his Essentials of Zoology (1963) saying:
" they pursue
and capture food
or sit still and reach out to capture it;
they ingest it; they digest it; they eliminate liquid
wastes
from the body; they respire; they produce energy;
they grow;
they reproduce their kind. They go where they want to go,
they retreat from where they don't want to be, or they just stay
still.
Some scholars say they seem to exercise choice, will,
judgement,
memory; others that they merely react mechanically to stimuli."
(page 58)
The Ancients once pointed to the
accommodations made
for the birds and the flowers as evidence for an attentive Father.
This special value that he gives to amoebas
is worthy of my contemplation.
" He provides
for their needs and mine. He brings
about the satisfacton of every living thing."
zig zig. Song of David opus 104 lines 27 and
28 1000 BC