snail art

A few summers ago I sent a few of my friends some silly little collages and messages on paper. My friend John wanted to start a Correspondence School of Art, so I labeled the papers with “Mail Art” and told my friends that they had been enrolled in the CSoA. One of my friends, Wini, misread “Mail Art” as “Snail Art” and when I corrected her she told me she’d liked it as Snail Art. And it made sense, with postal correspondence being “snail mail” and all.

Last week I was sitting on my bed, reading or typing or something, and I looked over and saw a slug chugging along on the large square tiles in my room. I had never seen a land dwelling snail before I came to India last year, and I don’t think I’d ever seen a land dwelling slug until this last week, either. I took some snaps of it as it wandered around near my (closed) door, then tried to coax it onto a stiff piece of junk glossy paper I had in my room. When the slug met the paper, though, it shrunk up to look more like a chubby leaf, waiting a while to start moving again and then changing direction to head up the wall (I guess hoping to avoid similar encounters again?). The slug wandered around for a bit, leaving a barely-noticeable sheen on the wall, and I liked the winding trail. Then I remembered Wini’s Snail Art, which made me I like this slug’s work even more. My snaps aren’t so great, because it was night and my room has fluorescent lights, but I still like them.

I eventually had the slug mosey onto a piece of paper so that I could bring it outside. When I picked up the paper for transport the slug shrunk up again, pulling in its antennae and trying to camouflage as a chubby leaf on a white piece of paper.