This page contains language and images that some people may find offensive. This is an art and camping story: a disturbing homage to Courbet’s Origin of the World.

Martin Dies Jr. State Park is a 705-acre area on the northern edge of the Big Thicket.

Martin Dies Jr. State Park is a 705-acre area on the northern edge of the Big Thicket, on the bank of the B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir, where the Angelina and Neches Rivers meet. Established in 1965, the forested park is home to loblolly, longleaf, and shortleaf pines, along with an abundance of water oak, red oak, sweet gum, and magnolias plus bald cypress trees in wetland areas.

A couple years ago I spent a week there with my camping buddies. For background on the group and Martin Dies State Park, here is the TroysArt link: Martin Dies State Park, a tent near the water.

Michael, David, Bobby, Philip, Tim, and I spent another week there in 2021.  And of all the abundant and beautiful wildlife found in and around the Reservoir, it is the simple mayfly that impacted our vacation as well as a disturbing art project.

THE SITUATION~

While canoeing on the Neches River and its tributaries I could see schools of the tiny shrimp-like creatures teaming beneath the surface.

Mayflies are one of the most ancient insects still alive today, predating the dinosaurs by about 100 million years. After mayfly eggs hatch at the bottom of a stream or lake, they spend up to two years as nymphs. While canoeing on the Neches River and its tributaries I could see schools of the tiny shrimp-like creatures teaming beneath the water.

Eventually the mayfly is ready to break free from its watery confines. Male mayflies swarm just above the surface of the water and the females fly into the swarm to mate. The females live for about five minutes, just enough time to mate, lay eggs, and die, forever enveloped back into the water from whence they emerged. The male flies, however, having fulfilled their fatherly responsibilities, fly off to the nearest land to party and die.

Swarms of mayflies can be so dense that they are commonly detected on weather radar.

Swarms of mayflies can be so dense that they are commonly detected on weather radar, especially in the Great Lakes region.

I had heard of this phenomena but never experienced it. Unfortunately, our trip was ground zero for the complete Martin Dies mayfly experience, and right during dinnertime.  After half an hour the air was so dense with insects it was like a gross, fluttery blizzard, our mouths covered with bandanas to keep from breathing bugs. Luckily Tim and Philip had their Mercedes RV where we could seek refuge, to eat without ingesting spoons-full of insects.

The party was so amused with the painting that they posed for a family photo with it.

After an hour the swarm ended and the ground was covered inches deep with downy white carcasses, like the stuffing of feather pillows spread far as the eye could see.

THE INSPIRATION~

During Covid, as restrictions on travel became more relaxed, David & Bobby took David’s mother Karen to Paris.  Karen is a proper Dallas lady. And from the story told, while visiting the Musee d’Orsay, Karen was taken aback by an 1866 painting by Gustave Courbet called L’Origine du Monde or Origin of the World. The party was so amused with the painting that they posed for a family photo with it.

Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet, public domain.

Simply, the Origin of the World is famous for being shocking. It’s a vagina. It is not just a suggested pubic region but detailed, realistic genitalia done in an era when women were almost exclusively painted in an idealized way. This is not a painting of a goddess or a mythological woman which were traditional pretenses for nude paintings.

Link here for the TroysArt list of history’s most shocking paintings.

Jean Desire Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the 19th Century’s French Realism movement. He rejected academic convention and as an artist was willing to make bold social statements with his paintings.

Jean Desire Gustave Courbet was a French painter who lead the 19th Century’s French Realism movement. (Gustave Courbet’s The Desperate Man, self-portrait, 1843. Public domain.)

When the Origin of the World was painted it was not well-known and did not generate as much controversy due to its exhibition history. The one time in the 19th Century that the Origin of the World was seen, a police report and subsequent investigation was made. The painting was not seen publicly until 1988 as it was first owned by a Turkish diplomat who only invited close friends to view it. Now that this painting is revealed, no other credible artist has so efficiently crossed the line from fine art to pornography, and in an age when pornography was no such thing–he did it in oil.

The painting is viewed as objectifying women. In 2014, performance artist Deborah de Robertis got naked at the Musee d’Orsay and spread her legs in front of the painting for shocked museum attendees. Though I have never seen it in person, the painting definitely evokes reaction.

THE PROJECT~

After half an hour the air was so dense with insects it was like a gross, fluttery blizzard

As shocking as the actual painting might be, here is where it gets worse… Fill half a dozen gay guys in the woods with buckets of really good wine and things start to happen.

There were discussions about what mayflies could be used for and about artists who use insects in their work.  David recalled a Black Tie Dinner in which an artsy fartsy hairdresser donated a painting to the silent auction in which he mixed hair clippings into the paint.

David set the canvases on a Bar-B-Q pit as a stand.

The way this specific project was suggested is hazy to me.  And to be honest, I cannot recall being a fan of the idea. But with a little arm twisting, I busted out my traveling art box to “recreate” the Courbet masterpiece. Within 15 minutes I had done up a rudimentary acrylic on canvas homage to The Origin of the World.

As dinner approached and we readied our victuals for the camper I applied a wet coat over the painting’s pubic area, the idea being that the wet paint would catch flies.  The male mayflies lodged in the paint would be forever memorialized in the very situation which brought them forth, culminating in an homage to Courbet with the creation of the ultimate fly covered snatch.

Luckily Tim and Philip had their Mercedes RV where we could seek refuge.

And as a side project in the interest of arts and sciences, a monochromatic canvas was also prepared with thick paint.

David set the canvases on a Bar-B-Q pit as a stand, away from our tents and food preparation area–as if that would make a difference.

While dining on grilled steak with baked potatoes and asparagus, we could see the swarming tempest through the Sprinter windows and hear mayflies’ tiny bodies smattering against the metal walls like rain.  And when the insect sex festival was over we walked out over the field of carcasses, and the results of the art project were more hideous than can be imagined.

So insidious was this painting that Michael made a video with the audio Wet Ass Pussy.  To enjoy Michael’s video, click HERE.  We could not stop laughing at the finished result and the atrocity we committed.

David and Bobby recreated the Parisian family photo with the painting nailed to a tree.

David and Bobby recreated the Parisian family photo with the painting nailed to a tree, like East Texas’ own pop-up of the Musee d’Orsay.

THE AFTERMATH~

Sometimes a dead bug is just a splotch on the windshield, and sometimes a dead bug is so much more.

Of all the artists who use dead insects in their artwork, Damien Hirst is most renowned. His controversial paintings using butterfly wings explore the boundaries and interactions between art, religion, beauty, science, and life and death. And while the camping club clearly pushed boundaries here, I cannot claim that anything of philosophical importance has emerged.

Sometimes a dead bug is just a splotch on the windshield, and sometimes a dead bug is so much more.

David requested that I take the paintings home to properly dry them; the paint was dry to the touch, but the mayflies needed to mummify. He even gathered a Ziplock baggie full of mayflies in case I needed to “touch up”. And depending upon how the bugs cured, the art would be stabilized with varnish. But I didn’t want that shit in my car.

I cannot recall what happened to the monochromatic experiment and think we burned it in the campfire, but I convinced David to take our version of The Origin of the World in his own car, back to Houston where it dried in his attic.  And he did eventually apply a spray varnish.

David even unveiled the painting for Karen and her sister.  He reported that they got a good chuckle out of it.  Though I can imagine nervous laughter, wondering what kind of psychopath her son turned out to be.

And we did make other pictures during the trip

And we did make other pictures during the trip, other less demeaning to women kinds of pictures.  Bobby, Michael, and l all have traveling art boxes.  But I have no idea if Karen saw any of the normal, sane paintings.

Days passed as I noticed a strange odor in my car. As my car had been immediately unloaded and cleaned after the trip, I chalked it up to residual campout funk.

But as weeks went by the smell intensified. I wondered if my car had gotten wet. My lunch buddies in Houston said that it smelled like fish. I couldn’t even drive around with the windows up.  The German autohaus tore it up looking for the smell; I checked my dog’s ass to see if she was suffering some sort of satanic discharge; I bleached the leather seats; I ripped the trunk apart looking for rotted food; I looked under the seats for spilled drinks. I wouldn’t even be able to sell it as a trade-in because of the stench.

I didn’t want that shit in my car.

I bought a pile of scented sachet packs to go in the trunk and in the map pockets.  Artificial peach and sandalwood would be more preferable than tuna and ass.  And that is where I discovered it–a little baggie of rotted mayflies in a gelatinous state like molasses with hundreds of wings in it–remnants of the very carcasses that David gathered for me to “touch up” that disgusting painting. Apparently, Michael and David decided to play a little joke on me.  Then forgot.

I called Michael and threatened to murderize him.  David felt so bad he threw money at the problem.  But instead of a professional detail, the Benz really needed a good douche.  Do they even make automotive grade Gyne-Lotrimin?

With the rotten creatures removed, the gift that kept on stinking eventually subsided.  A literally rotten joke, but it is nice to feel included.

And now I hope to never see that vile painting again.