We live like ants

“Colony” (detail) (ink on paper), by Catherine Chalmers, in her current show at the Lamont Gallery, Exeter, N.H.

She says:

“We have compared ourselves to ants, in our stories and fables, for thousands of years. As our cities grow larger and humanity becomes a predominantly urban species, we live more and more like ants do. The features of city life—dense urban environments, frequent physical contact, fixed homes used day after day—have countless advantages, but as we have witnessed with the COVID- 19 pandemic, they make it much easier for disease to spread to all members of a society, whether anthropoid or arthropod.’’