Worms (2023)

In maybe the weirdest story of my life, I can’t stop drawing worms.

When I first started drawing them, I was at Fish Factory Arts Space in Penryn, Cornwall, England, in July 2023. Camilla Stacy told me that another artist who lives in Penryn, Georgia Gendell, is also into worms — so into them, in fact, that she took a worm to a paint store, got it scanned, and painted a barn worm-colored.* Camilla also told me that Georgia runs an event called the Falmouth Worm Charming Championship, where people elaborately dress up, play instruments, and try as many ploys as possible to get worms to arise from the ground.** It is a competition. I messaged Georgia and attended a Worm Charming with my friends Scamp and Jesse. We ended up on ITV, National British Television. We wore my pink masks, and it looked like we were, undoubtedly, dressed up as giant worms. At one point, Scamp was talking to the news anchor and told her that I had come all the way from San Francisco to attend a worm charming. She repeated, “YOU CAME ALL THE WAY FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO ATTEND A WORM CHARMING?” I said yes. She asked me why. I then proceeded to make up a bunch of facts about worms on National British Television. I blacked out and completely forget what I said, but at some point, she turned back to the camera and exclaimed, “WE WOULDN’T EXIST WITHOUT WORMS.” I must have been convincing.

Afterward, I was in a coffee shop and met a dancer who told me about a performance artist in Penryn who calls themself The Worm. I messaged them, and they told me that they are more into ‘wyrm’ than ‘worm.’ It was never clarified what that meant — which I love.

I was afraid to Google worms because I worried that it might taint my drawings — derail or demystify them — but then I did. Luckily, it only inspired me. I realized I could go longer and thinner. Previously, my worms were shorter, more voluptuous, more limited in their scope. I found out that Cornwall is home to the Bootlace Worm (lineus longissimus), the longest species on earth — with specimens up to 55 meters in length. Its mucus is highly toxic. While the Bootlace Worm is not blue, I took this as permission to start drawing blue worms.

After telling Erin Desmond about my worm occurrences, she told me that scientists have discovered that the oldest known ancestor of almost all animals, including humans, is a worm (ikaria wariootia). Scientists were looking for a creature with bilateral symmetry (in which there are similar parts on opposite sides of a body) — an important prerequisite not found until recently in 555-million-year-old deposits in Southern Australia. There is evidence that these worms contracted muscles to move from one place to another. They would burrow through deposits to eat — suggesting they had sensory capabilities. If this is our oldest known ancestor, then at one point, we were all once worm.

So yeah, anyway, I can’t stop drawing worms.

*I met Georgia later on, and it was clarified that there are not one but two colors of worm from the paint store titled Worm 1 and Worm 2. One of the colors is very brown, and Georgia suspects that it is an image of the worm’s intestinal tract. So… the shade of worm poo.

**It is unproven whether worm charming works. But, still, I found it well worth the effort — the opposite of a Pyrrhic Victory.