How did you determine the patterns you created?

"That the very bottom of the wall is cicadas in diagonals. It's very much like wainscoting around the room. Then, you have the skulls. Above that, [it] becomes chaotic, so I think the pattern grounds the room and then this disorder that partially forms into shapes. I thought of it looking like fireworks, when you have that moment where you feel like you see the stars and then boom, it disperses. Again, that's a reference to what man likes to do. He has always tried to control Mother Nature, but ultimately, Mother Nature controls us."

How did your interest in the plight of insects come about?

"I'm not an entomologist, I came to it through my field. I teach textile design at University of Wisconsin, in Madison. I was doing research in the mid '80s and into the early '90s on tribal minority dress in northern Thailand, the area known as the Golden Triangle. Within that region, there are many different ethnic minority groups. I was photographing tribal dress when I came upon a garment from the Karen tribe called the Singing Shawl. It had a fringe in which the person hand strung these green, iridescent insect wings. The wings are so hard that they make a chiming sound. I was blown away by the design. Until that point, I had never thought of insects as beautiful, beyond butterflies. It was a revelation and the ingenuity of using what was in their backyard in place of beads or sequins."