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An El Paso Exhibit Showcases The Many Ways This Insect Colors Your World
Your face, your food, and your formalwear. These are just some of the places where you may have interacted with the cochineal bug — a small insect that produces a vibrant crimson pigment.
Native to many regions of South America, as well as Mexico and Arizona, the dried beetle was an important export for the Spanish empire. Its dye has been used globally for several centuries for coloring foods and various craft traditions, including paints, textiles and makeup.
The bug’s colorful history is on display in west Texas this summer. Patrick Shaw Cable, a senior curator at the El Paso Museum of Art, says the exhibit illustrates the expansive impact of the cochineal.
“It’s really a wonderful show that’s cross-cultural and cross-historical, through this very novel thing,” Cable says.
Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/an-el-paso-exhibit-showcases-the-many-ways-an-insect-adds-color-to-your-world/