Katie Paterson

Fossil Necklace, 2013, 70 carved rounded fossils, strung on silk, 1473mm total length, 737mm end to end strung; Katie Paterson, Fossil Necklace, 2013. Photo: ©️ Thomas Farnetti Courtesy of Wellcome Collection

Let There Be Life

Commentary by Robert Hawkins

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Read by Ben Quash

This necklace threads together one hundred and seventy beads, each one made from a different fossil. The fossils span 4750 million years of the earth’s history; the beads, arranged chronologically around the necklace, tell the story of life on earth. From its single-cell origins, through massive extinction events and the collision of continents, to the rise and fall of kingdoms of plants, reptiles, and mammals: aeons of life’s story are excavated, smoothed, and strung together.

The fifth day of creation (Genesis 1:20–23) stresses the sheer abundance of life, its multifariousness, its complexity. The waters swarm; there are creatures of every kind. Fossil Necklace helps us to imagine this phenomenal proliferation extended through geological time. What Genesis renders as a sudden blossoming, the fossil record magnifies and dilates. The chronological scale is dizzying. Each bead is a capsule from a particular day in the life of creation, an anchor attaching the present to an ancient moment in the geological story.

Creation proceeds by multiplication, and by accretion, layer upon layer. Annie Dillard, in her great meditation on the complexity of nature, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, wonders at the sheer profligacy of it all, the extravagance of all these swarming things dying to make way for new things: ‘though nothing is lost, everything is spent’ (Dillard 1974: 66). Fertility and death have always been related: everything that lives stands on the shoulders of everything that has died. And yet, nothing is ever quite lost. Things leave prints and traces; sometimes fossils of astonishing beauty. Each of Katie Paterson’s beads is a swirling world in itself: lichen yellow, glowing amber, sparkling quartz.

Still today, the animal, plant, and fungal kingdoms roil forward in ongoing creation. As one hymn puts it: ‘there is grace enough for thousands of new worlds as great as this’.

 

References

Dillard, Annie. 2011. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (London: Canterbury Press)

See full exhibition for Genesis 1:6–23

Genesis 1:6–23

Revised Standard Version

6 And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11And God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so. 12The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens.” 21So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

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