William Rumley " Allure Series Statement"

Allure Series
Meditations on Social Constructs While Tying Flies

Allure (verb): to powerfully attract or charm; to tempt.

This work emerges from an accumulation of experiences across art and the life sciences, alongside my self-proclaimed status as an extraordinarily adequate fly fisher and fly tier.

I have come to understand fly fishing as a form of puppetry. The tier constructs the fly as object—or puppet—and the fisher, as puppeteer, animates it; imparting life through movement and mimicry of aquatic life, that is food for the fish. It is a performance.

Performance requires an audience and the conveyance of narrative. In fly fishing, the audience is not human but beast. In Allure Series, the work is directed toward a human audience, and is about being human, rather than food.

The practice of fly tying is repetitive and meditative. Within that repetition, space opens for reflection. My thoughts often turn to social constructs—identity, gender, politics, tribalism, love, and art.

At its core, this work seeks to deepen awareness and facilitate social change. It aims to make visible the systemic biases that shape and narrow our perception of humanity. Through this, I hope to foster understanding and an expanded acceptance of difference.