Yvan LOZZI Pestalozzi - Sculptor
. Insect Stabiles
Reflections
The thought that creations of mine should adorn a livestock clinic threw me into conflict with my critical attitude towards high-yield utility animals that are kept for the sole purpose of meeting our society's inordinate food consumption requirements.
The term "utility animal" - as a designation for the highly bred creatures that provide meat and diary products for minority of the earth's population - prompted me to look for truly useful creatures whose role in nature really is a salutary one.

The Idea
Insects and spiders! The million and more species of insects and spiders play an important part in the natural cycle in that they form a link in the food chain that invariably ends either directly or indirectly with, in, or on Homo sapiens.
We regard certain insects as intolerable nuisances to both man and beast which makes it extremely difficult to understand the reason for their existence in the ecosystem. Nevertheless, unlike the pestiferous human race, these noxious insects present no threat whatsoever to the balance of nature. Other insect and spider species contribute to the balance of nature as well as to the constitution of the landscape and make possible the very existence of ourselves and animals, including those we call livestock or "utility animals".
From the fantastic number of nature's truly useful creatures, I have chosen the ant, the spider, the lacewing and the honeybee for the artistic adornment of the designated locations.

Design
These iron sculptures of useful creatures are much larger than life as well as being greatly simplified; nonetheless, they exhibit certain of the characteristics associated with them.
Honeybee Spider
Honeybee

The wonderful world of the honeybee already fascinated mankind thousands of years ago. It is doubtless the best known and most popular of all the insects. Both nature and man benefit from the activities of this most useful and indispensable domestic creature. The bee's greatest contribution is that of plant pollination: 80 per cent of all plants that require the attention of insects are pollinated by the honeybee.
The indefatigable collecting drive of the bee gives us not only its chief product honey, but also many other valuable items, some of which are used in pharmaceutical preparations; they include wax, bee glue (propolis), royal jelly and bee venom. Even the odd bee sting can be suffered with a degree of equanimity (except allergic persons!) if it is appreciated that this particular poison lowers the blood pressure, dilates the blood vessels and even has a direct and beneficial effect on sciatica!
 Spider

Most of the 35,000 web-spinning species known worldwide are predators that live mainly on small insects. Whoever takes an interest in spiders begins to regard them with respect instead of fear and revulsion. This versatile and useful creature cannot fail to delight us with its fascinating capabilities. For example, the spider's structural skill is many times greater than that of human beings. Its miraculous silken thread that is as strong as steel and as elastic as rubber has not yet been synthesised despite strenous efforts to achieve this objective!
The role of the spider in the balance of nature and its usefullness in the agricultural world can hardly be exaggerated. Up to 130 of them can occupy a square metre of meadowland, that is to say 1,300,000 per hectare, a population capable of devouring some 500 kilograms of insects in a year.


There are other insect stabiles in LOZZI'S PICTUREBOOK.

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