Adam’s Mussels

 

Disturbing news from the world of workplace safety.  Gillian Genser, a 59-year-old Canadian sculptor, has been suffering from worsening pain, splitting headaches, and nausea for nearly a decade and a half.  She visited a range of specialized neurologists and endocrinologists, but none of them could pinpoint the nature of her malady which grew worse to the point that she was immobilized and suffered complete loss of hearing in one ear.  She was unable to distinguish up from down, forgot the names and faces of people, she knew her whole life, and discovered herself wandering the streets for no reason shouting profanities.   The doctors suspected heavy-metal poisoning, but Genser vehemently insisted that her materials were all natural.

If you are an artist yourself, you are probably shouting—but this is clearly heavy metal poisoning!  And you are right: Genser finally was diagnosed with acute arsenic and lead poisoning after one of her physicians insisted on a blood test.  Yet Genser was not a painter (like me, sigh) nor did she cast in metals or use exotic glazes and stains.  Her only materials were silver and mussel shells which she polished agonizingly by hand.

She obtained the blue mussels from a market in Toronto’s Chinatown and ate the mollusks with friends.  She then used the shells for her larger than life anatomical sculpture of Adam, the mythical first human from the Abrahamic faiths.  Sadly, whoever was providing the shellfish was obtaining them from water which was heavily polluted.  Mussels store metals in their shells, and Genser’s polishing, sanding, and shaping freed the trapped pollutants into dust which she inhaled (although eating 3 meals a week of mussel flesh probably didn’t help either).  The story is even more troubling when one reflects that blue mussels are an Atlantic shellfish and Toronto is at least 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the waves.

Hey! Has anyone noticed that Toronto is apparently right next to New York State? Where were these mussels from anyway?

The moral here in not “don’t be an artist” or “don’t eat mussels” (although, come to think of it, those are extremely plausible lessons).  Instead everyone needs to be careful in the modern world to watch out for hazardous materials which proliferate in unexpected ways from novel sources.  Of course, this is hardly a soothing message since most of us are not chemists (much less endocrinologists) and it looks like even those experts can’t always see where problems are coming from.  Maybe the real lesson is that humankind’s vast numbers and sophisticated industrial society are fundamentally inimical to the web of life which sustains us.  Actually, that is an even less comfortable message…but, well, I am not a politician here to sooth you with lies.  We have learned how to protect ourselves from the natural world.  Now we are going to have to learn (quickly) how to protect the natural world from ourselves.

Anyway, let’s take a look at the sculpture that caused such suffering for Genser (see the photos above from the artist).  It looks like the metal-poisoning started to fundamentally work its way into the sculpture itself—in terms of conception, execution, AND material (obviously).  Yet there is something oddly appropriate about the subject matter (Adam’s choices, after all, are a metaphor for humankind’s great metamorphosis from hunter-gathering beings to civilization-building farmers and crafters).  The dark armless statue with the alien face and the black glistening muscles and nacreous organs, seems to be a sort of manifestation of heavy metal poisoning.  The whole 15 year project has inadvertently become a performance piece about the pain of the world (just think of those poor mussels which can’t even move to escape their poisoned home waters).  I hope that the short-lived media burst helps Genser’s career, but I also hope she switches media as soon as possible.  While we are making wishes, let’s express some really heartfelt aspirations to be better stewards of the oceans.  They are the cradle of life…yet they are being sadly abused.

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Another Wicked Invader

The Zebra Mussel (Dreissena polymorpha)

Since 2011 is already shaping up rather grimly as the year of mass animal die-offs, it is time to revile the black-hearted invasive species which caused some of the the worst mass bird die-off in recent history.  I’m talking about the detested zebra mussel  an inch-long filter feeding bivalve mollusk with a pattern of brown zigzags on its shell.  The freshwater zebra mussel isn’t really that closely related to the marine mussels but shares many features with the Venus clams.

I am not too surprised if you feel ripped off that this dangerous invasive animal is a tiny shellfish.  But don’t dismiss the zebra mussel because of its diminutive size.  Zebra mussels are believed to be the source of deadly avian botulism poisoning that has killed immense numbers of birds in the Great Lakes since the late 1990s.  Additionally US powerplants and boat owners spend half a billion dollars a year scraping the creatures off water intakes for power plants and other underwater equipment.  The mollusks are also rather sharp and can injure wader’s feet–which necessitates wearing shoes in affected waterways.

Originally natives of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, Zebra mussels spread via canal to the rest of continental Europe and then stowed away in fresh-water ballast and on anchor chains of ocean going boats to travel across the ocean to Great Britain, Ireland, Canada and the United States. The Great Lakes are being hit especially hard by them.  Whenever they spread to a new location the native freshwater mollusks are gravely impacted.

Zebra mussels on a Lake Erie beach (photo from Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab).

Of course the mussels’ impact is not entirely negative.  To quote the National Atlas of the United States (which, by-the-way is an interesting geography resource):

Zebra mussels do have a positive impact on some native species. Many native fish, birds, and other animals eat young and adult zebra mussels. Migratory ducks have changed their flight patterns in response to zebra mussel colonies. Lake sturgeon feed heavily on zebra mussels, as do yellow perch, freshwater drum, catfish, and sunfish. The increase in aquatic plants due to increased water clarity provides excellent nursery areas for young fish and other animals, leading to increases in smallmouth bass populations in Lake St. Clair and the Huron River. However, these native species do not feed heavily enough on zebra mussels to keep the populations under control.

We might as well enjoy the smallmouth bass and the clear water.  Nothing people have done has halted or even impacted the spread of the zebra mussels so it looks like we’ll have to learn to live with them.