I would describe my art as an ornate preservation of life and death.

[Open music] Normally I would just call it ornate entomology art.

Preserved insects in ornate antique frames and domes, vessels.

I've always had a love for just, like, odd, strange things.

And when I first started, I started it just for something to do, something that I enjoyed doing a hobby for myself.

I ordered a few butterflies online and found out that bubble glass frames existed, and it just felt right to put them together.

And as I started doing it more, I think I fell more in love with moths than I did butterflies, which is I never expected.

I started out fully in love with all butterflies.

I know when you think moth, you think like, swarming your light.

[Laughs] Not very cute, but, they come in just as many colors as butterflies.

So I get most of my insects from breeders.

They do it as a hobby.

I have a couple here in Spokane that do it.

A lot of what I use are not local species.

I use a lot of Luna moths.

They're one of the more popular moths.

Everyone loves those ones.

Um, a lot of Polyphemus moths.

Um, Death's-head [hawk] moths.

Those are my favorite.

Um.

I think those are, you know, the big main three.

There's multiple ways to rehydrate them.

A lot of people, um, just wet some paper towel in a Tupperware, leave them in there for a few days until their wings become pliable.

But I prefer, um like, hot water injections.

You take, like, a really, really small syringe and inject their bodies like the upper thorax with hot water.

And it gives kind of like an instant rehydration.

And then as they dry, they're, they're pretty cool.

They don't disintegrate or rot or anything like that.

They kind of self preserve.

I don't typically go into a piece, like, with an idea in my head.

Um, I just, I look at what I have and it just kind of comes as I go.

[Thats really cool.]

[Emily: Yeah, its a honeybee.]

[You put a honeybee on a wasp nest?]

[Emily: Yes, I did.]

[Wow!]

I get asked multiple times, every day, how I source.

I always let them know.

I came about my sourcing, um, just as I went.

It didn't start that way.

Um, I started how most people start, like, buying insects online.

Uh, I joined a bunch of different breeding groups because they're clearly raising them.

So, you know, what do you do with them when they pass?

Because I would love to buy them from you.

There's a big misconception that, you know, we go out and we kill all these animals and that's not the case at all.

Most of them are, you know, natural passing.

And a lot of moths I use are not in the greatest shape.

They are torn.

They are tattered.

But that's part of them getting to live their lives.

I feel like I've grown a lot over the last two and a half years, and I, I plan to keep kind of perfecting my craft and, um, I don't think necessarily death.

I know that's a big one for some people.

Um, they're inspired by, like, the death.

But, for me, it's the bugs the frames and the elegance of, you know, like giving these things, animals, insects, a forever eternal resting place that's beautiful.

[Upbeat music]