Secret Aspects Of Chewing Gum Spider Behaviour(And Other Tails To Astonish)

The complete life histories and habits are known for only a handful of species of The Chewing Gum Spider. While some of the information is generally known, I am concerned more with what is not so well known. In some species the mother is eaten by her young. They do not distinguish even their own species from other prey, so that one may devour another when opportunity prevails. Webs are constructed gradually and in segments over a period of many days. Is The Chewing Gum Spider toxic to your pet? The answer is yes. If you have ever had a Chewing Gum Spider stuck in your hair, you know what a pain it can be to get it out. Here are a few ways I have found that will work.

Things You’ll Need:

• Peanut Butter
• Olive Oil
• Corn Oil
• WD-40 spray
• Ice

Opening Night Thursday September 18 at 6.30pm
Exhibition runs from September 17 to October 5.
Watt Space Open Wednesday - Sunday from 12-6pm.
Auckland St Newcastle

Grant Hunter’s work invokes a different Newcastle for me. The home of TINA, and as a Generation X’er, I am usurped here by Generation Y. His installation is a great example of a DIY aesthetic, replete with incy-wincy-chewie spiders with googly eyes hanging from a cotton wool web. Hunter’s work is a multimedia assemblage; animation, electronic sound, lo-fi installation, wordsmithing, yet eshews a slick aesthetic for the aura of the handmade. His CD covers are one-offs, playing on the increased value attributed to the limited edition (especially in music cultures) and Grant told me he usually makes them to give to friends. As such, they are an example of ‘gifting’, an economy which privileges personal labour over the commercial and reproducible. Their repositioning on the gallery wall, however, now situates them, somewhat uneasily, as ‘objects for sale’ in the art market. Though at $20 a pop you could hardly accuse him of selling out. The other axis I’m reminded of in his work is that of childhood– his installation makes the pages of a child’s story-book spatially manifest. Grant’s work looks like it could be made in his bedroom, a befitting studio for such imaginative schemas.
- Keri Glastonbury 

A ravishing environment of cobwebs made from teased-out cotton wool, an amusing spider's lair augmented by a film projection. Full marks to Grant Hunter.
- Jill Stowell, Newcastle Herald