I read somewhere that most people are never more than eight feet away from a spider at any time in their lives. The arachnids are that successful a species, that prolific and diversified. Even when you’re sitting in an airplane or lounging on the deck of an ocean liner, at least one of them is within easy striking distance. The artist, an intellectual sub-species of humanity, puts these creatures to shame.

            People make things as part of the infrastructure of civilization. We need trains, cars, roads, and telephones. And make no mistake, much like a spider, art has found its way into every corner of everything and set up shop.

            Take the biggest things first, like the Hoover Dam in Nevada, for instance. It’s certainly a monumental feat of engineering, pumping out over two thousand megawatts a day. An old but enduring utilitarian monster of a project, it has a clear design purpose. It took 21,000 men five years to complete, and they created Lake Mead in the process. But look a little closer. Above the graceful, Parisian belly of the concrete is a crown of Art Deco turrets and little stone Deco towers housing who knows what mystery. And of course gamblers and wish makers toss casino chips and coins into the chaotic white froth at the dams groin, surely a form of performance art. When viewed this way, the Hoover Dam is something like a Christmas tree. The transverse bridge being built above it? A thing of wires and light that would tickle the fancy of any self-respecting spider.

            A smaller example? Skyscrapers. What a magnificent pairing of words. These are objects where so many people work and so many others travel in and out of on business. Now you’re inside the art. Neo-Gothic to Deco, International to Post-Modern… It’s so close you’re stepping on it, breathing its respiration, riding around in the elevators of its circulatory system, nesting snugly for hours on end in its very cells.

            Closer still? How does one get to these great dams and towering buildings? In a car or a plane? No matter how you do, someone designed the mode of your conveyance, and little things crept in as they worked. The color scheme between the outside and the inside, the stitching in the leather seat or the weave of its fabric, the tiny frills around the dials and buttons. Logos. The web narrows as it approaches the center.

            Street signs. Who decided their geometry? And who made the font itself? Who picked a shade of red for the classic ruby shape of the stop sign? What ironsmith wrought the template of the head of the fire hydrant on the corner of my street into the shape of a conquistador’s helmet, and why, for that matter, do cop cars bear an unlikely resemblance to cowboy hats? We just can’t help ourselves, that’s why. The deeper you look, the more you see.

            Lets not forget food. Oh, no. You’ll find the creative impulse all over everything that finds its way into your mouth these days. Food is an art almost everyone makes to some degree, and when we don’t others do it for us, sculpting it, teasing it, manipulating it to new heights. Tarantulas.

            And that brings us finally to your home, the area of greatest infestation. Consider its architecture, the design of your furniture. The pattern in the rug in the entryway? What hangs from the walls, what touches your ears from the radio, what skitters over your eyes and then dances down your optic and auditory nerves from your television. Much of it is not only made, but crafted.

            And then last you go to bed, surrounded by furniture, even laying on it. There’s a headboard, maybe a fancy shade on the lamp on the bed stand next to you, and a delicate pattern in the cloth of your pillowcase. What, pray tell, do your pajamas look like? Your underwear? You are surrounded.

Art is closer than any spider could ever dream of. In fact, considering that any article, even the one in your hands right now, is an artful assemblage of words and ideas, you’ve just been bitten again. This time on the inside of your head.

This was originally published in Filling Station #70, a kick ass Canadian magazine. Check ’em out!

Check out new work and more by Jeff Johnson www.greatpinkskeleton.com