I recently decided to join BuzzFeed.

I read their stuff all the time – why not try my hand at writing a few posts?  (As it mentions in my About page, this blog isn’t my first foray into the online world.)

So… why not?

I started with food, something with which I am intimately familiar:

25 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Cook On A Waffle Iron

That’s actually something I’ve been wanting to write about for awhile.  Instead, I turned it into a visual post for BuzzFeed.

Then, I did a couple of posts about cute animals.  Mostly because the pics all make me happy:

The 25 Cutest Animal Kisses

15 Animals That Are More Excited About The Snow Than You

I wasn’t really sure what to write about next.

Then this video popped up in my Facebook feed.  What is this thing about ants and anthills and art?  I watched the video.

DUDE.

Dude:  they were pouring molten aluminum into ant hills, digging it up, and calling it art.

Art has long been controversial.  I get that.  I’m an artist, but I’ve still found myself disgusted by what some people will try to pass off as artistic expression.

But I couldn’t take my eyes off of these sculptures.

They were disturbing.  A little nauseating.  But… striking and organic and fluid and mystifying.

And disturbing.  Did I mention disturbing?  Just in case, let me mention it again:  disturbing.

I had to share these images.  They were amazing, astounding, filled with the beauty of the earth.  (And disturbing.)  I thought people should see them.  So I wrote a picture-heavy post on BuzzFeed.

And then I was surprised, because BuzzFeed featured my post.  Within eight hours of its publication, it had 20,000 views.  The next day:  79,000.

Seventy-nine THOUSAND.  In just over 24 hours.

That’s not exactly the amount of traffic I’m accustomed to with my other blogs, Squidoo lenses, etc.

Some of the comments were not terribly happy.  There was talk of ecosystem destruction and all those “poor” ants.  Of course, I’m a Floridian, and I’ve been bitten by fire ants before.

It’s a traumatic experience.

So I have very little sympathy for what appears to be an abandoned colony.  Besides, as one commenter pointed out, tons of chemicals are poured into the earth in an attempt to kill ants, so, really, how bad is a little aluminum in a probably-abandoned hole?  Not great, but not as bad as buckets of pesticides.  And waaaaaaaaaaay better than ants.

Anyway, check out the video and artwork at 6 Anthill Art Sculptures That Will Blow Your Mind and let me know what you think.  Is it art?  Is it disturbing?

Is it both?