The artist shown with “Dancing Hives” installed in Rogue River Community College Gallery, Grants Pass, OR

ONGOING PROJECT - HIVE

I first developed my “hive” series from 2002 to 2008. This series evolved gradually after my move from the Bay Area to the warmer inland region of California’s Sacramento Valley. My ideas burst forth with an exuberance and boldness that surprised and delighted me. My mixed media work on canvas became large scale, using brighter colors, words from dictionaries, my own writing and photographs and found objects. I was surrounded by agriculture. I tore out my lawn by hand and planted native plants as I could afford them. This brought the honeybees to my world.

I interviewed experts in entomology. I studied bee habitats, life cycles, social systems, hive architecture, and their dance language. I learned that there were rumblings in the scientific and agricultural communities about a mysterious dying off of honeybees (later identified and confirmed as “colony collapse”). I returned to the photos I made in France of Parisian apiaries. I began to understand pollination, honey and the honey bee as metaphorical symbols of life, death, creation, sustenance and communication.

In 2003 I prepared for a month-long residency at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (deYoung Art Center and Legion of Honor), where I had been invited to demonstrate, teach and create my art on-site. I took my fascination with the honeybee and all it symbolized to the Museums and created my first large-scale triptych on wood at the deYoung. At the Legion of Honor, in the Rodin Gallery, I created story blocks of redwood, using scraps from a local lumberyard, and invited the public to collaborate.

Returning to my studio, I began to create “hive” sculptures, using wax, wire, paper, and silk fabric as well as paint, transfers, and printed words. These, along with the French apiary photographs and paintings on canvas, became my “hive” installation which was exhibited in various locations.

Now that I have returned to the central part of the United States, I’m eager to continue the hive project in my new habitat. In August 2023, I exhibited The HIVE at Category-ART in Peoria, IL.

Click here to see more of my hive project exhibits in California and Oregon