Pollination: Beyond The Garden is a thematic exhibition of artwork in the beeswax-based medium of encaustic. When I was asked by the Executive Director of The Brush Gallery, Eileen Byrne, to curate an exhibition of art in encaustic, my dream was to find a concept that would bring together artists who work in this medium. It was so important to me to have the medium be secondary to a cohesive theme. I chose pollination as that theme because of its nuanced definitions. I also wanted to use the beautiful and life-sustaining pollinating activities of bees, producers of our beloved wax, as a point of inspiration. To further enhance the scientific and ecological aspects of pollination, I invited Laura Tyler, an artist, beekeeper, and producer of a lyrical documentary about bees and beekeepers, to show her film, “Sister Bee,” and to speak about it. Tony Lulek, President of the Norfolk County Beekeeper Association, was also invited to educate us on the environmental issues concerning bees, such as Colony Collapse Disorder. This fusion of art and science is intended to broaden the cultural aspects of this exhibition as well as to stress the importance of bees as pollinators and producers of the wax used by artists in creating art with encaustic.
Pollination can be defined in so many ways: literally, emotionally, metaphorically, politically or poetically. I chose each artist for his or her unique vision and ability to use encaustic to express it. I looked for artists whose work speaks to movement, change, storytelling and reformation. As you look at the works, you will find motion, creation and the elapsing of time to be common threads. Kim Bernard’s work embodies movement with its elegant gestures. Binnie Birstein and Milisa Galazzi speak in a lyrical and metaphorical manner about the path bees follow. Lynette’s work is a collection that demonstrates the birth of a new object from the union of two others. Sue Katz and I used pollination as a metaphor to make a social networking commentary. Nancy Natale’s work displays a mathematically formal arrangement that alludes to the order of the beehive and the colony, yet contains a philosophic view about life and society. Toby Sisson’s use of marks and shapes that combine and reform are reminiscent of the act of pollination. Laura Tyler uses flower parts, the essence of pollen itself, combined and reconfigured to convey a sense of rebirth. Donna Talman’s works show a progression and path, and symbolize the fragile transportation of pollen with a timeless, ancient sense. Kellie Weeks relates to fluid aquatic movements with a scientific approach to pollination. As you read the passages each artist has written to describe their work or give their personal comments on the theme of pollination, you will get further insight and understanding of the artists’ intentions.
Gregory Wright, Curator
Kim Bernard
My work is a cross pollination of movement, mark making and mindfulness. Working large, with a 4’x8’ panel on the floor, I created gestural ink markings as a record of my body movement with a mop as a brush. After selecting circular sections from the 4’x8’ panel, I cut them out, sealed them with encaustic and played with different overlapping arrangements on the wall. This mark-making process required that I was “in the moment” and that things came together all at once, hence the title Holus-Bolus, which means “all together; entirely; without modification.”
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Holus-Bolus Encaustic and ink on MDF board 12”- 30” circles in diameter 2011 |
Binnie Birstein
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| Swarm Encaustic on wood panel 14” x 14” 2011 |
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| Trajectory Encaustic on wood panel 14” x 14” 2011 |
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What Lies Beneath Encaustic on wood panel 14” x 14” 2011 |
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| Vanish Encaustic on wood panel 14” x 14” 2011 |
Milisa Galazzi
I am intrigued with the idea of pollination as metaphor for the ways in which people connect and communicate with one another. This series is called Waggle Dance, as that is the name of the secret dance that bees do to communicate with one another about where to find nectar. My work in general is about connections between people and the ways in which humans communicate with one another, especially when we cannot physically be close to one another (as in the relationship with a mentor or a relative who is no longer present). These pieces are created by hand-sewing paper, then cutting away the negative space, and then dipping the work in encaustic to preserve and strengthen the piece. The work hangs about an inch off the wall and casts shadows on the wall behind it.
Essentially these pieces look like paper lace – strong yet delicate. The visual idea behind the work is that what is not there is more important than what is there; the shadow is what the pieces are about. In much the same way that a bee dances to communicate with its mates, these shadows dance on the wall and represent the delicate yet strong connections that we human beings create with each other.
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| Waggle Dance I Paper, thread, and encaustic 24” x 18” 2011 |
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| Waggle Dance II Paper, thread, and encaustic 24” x 12” 2011 |
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| Waggle Dance III Paper, thread, and encaustic 24” x 12” 2011 |
Lynette Haggard
When I’m not making art in my studio, I design science textbooks and content for a publisher. This involves reading material and reviewing imagery and photography that will help teach the science. So, my initial thoughts when invited to this show were of pollen and pollinators, pistils and stamens, and types of pollination: self-pollination, cross-pollination, wind and water pollination.
But that’s not what struck a chord for me in creating these pieces because my work doesn’t depend upon imagery. My paintings are about surface, a sense of time, memory – and recently more about the contrast between gesture and controlled mark making. A twist in my work is that over the past couple of years I have been moving between making paintings and creating more dimensional work in the form of the box that represents similar qualities. The box has a more powerful physical presence because of its dimensionality. I think of it as occupying the area between painting and sculpture. I view this as a cross pollination of my ideas and the medium of encaustic. |
| Mango Divergence I Resin, beeswax, pigment and oil stick on wood panel 30” x 40” 2011 |
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Mango Divergence II Resin, beeswax, pigment and oil stick on wood panel 30” x 40” 2011 |
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| Divergence Box Resin, beeswax, pigment, oil stick, foam and plaster 14” x 15” x 13” 2011 |
Sue Katz
“Pollinate,” “fertilize,” “impregnate” are all words that relate to the idea of “synapse” or the impulse to connect. I have named my works the Synapse Series and I think of this work as the intellectual process of having an idea, that spark, and the emotional impulse to touch and share – the convergence of thoughts and feelings. Here the juxtaposed circle and the square, as in da Vinci’s Vitruvian man, have been extended volumetrically to the spiral and the cube in a playful way. I intend that these works diagram the recent social net-working trend and our need to connect and communicate from our insular world in the studio and on the computer.
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Convergence Encaustic on wood, found painted wood and spiral 12"x11"x 11" 2011 |
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Four Sprung Encaustic on wood and metal springs 15"x15"x3" 2010 |
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You Bring Thought, I’ll Bring Emotion Encaustic on wood, metal spring and copper 7"x6"x6" 2011 |
Nancy Natale
Last year I found a few stray dominoes in my studio and made the little Dominotrix piece. This gave me the idea of representing pollination metaphorically by matching dots on paired dominoes in the same way that pollinators and pollinated flowers are matched. I soon realized, however, that this was too simplistic, both visually and metaphorically; I needed something that looked more dynamic and perhaps had another layer of metaphor – pollination could represent human interaction or even sex. So in Sweet As Honey, the dominoes are paired dot for dot but with a few turns and zigzags, both to mimic the flight of bees and to reflect the fact that nothing in relationships ever runs that smoothly. In Dark Companion, the dominoes are predominantly matched side by side instead of head-on and are formed into shapes that might represent hives. The darkness of the piece alludes to the emptiness of hives destroyed by disease and predators and to human societies destroyed by all the ills of civilization.
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As Sweet As Honey Mixed media with dominoes and encaustic on wood panel 36"x36” 2011 |
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Dark Companion Mixed media with dominoes and encaustic on wood panel 36"x36" 2011 |
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Dominotrix Mixed media with dominoes and encaustic on wood panel 14"x6" 2011 |
Toby Sisson
My work often explores the relationship between beauty and rawness through a mixture of organic materials, unruly mark making and intuitive compositions. These qualities celebrate impurity, a state I find inevitable and pleasurable, reflecting the natural
[dis]order of life.
For this exhibition, I focused on pollination as an occurrence that evokes generative, yet dark, associations – a proliferation of crude forms appears to morph, float and dissolve across the surface. Droplets and blooms contaminate one another while smooth orbs liquefy and dusty swirls blend with inky pools. This painted universe moves toward entropy.
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Untitled I (recto) 12" x 12" x 4" Wax, oil, charcoal, ink and paper on wood 2010 |
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Untitled II (recto) 12" x 12" x 4" Wax, oil and charcoal on wood 2010 |
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Untitled III 12" x 12" x 3" Wax, oil, charcoal and paper on wood 2010 |
Donna Hamil Talman
The flow of the wax, its movement, suggests something being carried in the winds. Winds, as well as animals, carry pollen, moving it from plant to plant. Pollen clouds blanket everything, are ineffectual en masse, but here and there an infinitesimal grain penetrates a receptive ovule, bringing – not life – but the potential of life.
The pollen is light. The process is subtle, invisible to the eye and may seem random but is actually very central to the act of creation of new life. This significant event is captured in a subtle way in the wax.
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On Rising Currents 44" x 14" Paper, graphite and encaustic on birch panel 2011 |
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Surviving in a World of Appetites 44" x 14" Paper, graphite and encaustic on birch panel 2011 |
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The Unpredictable and The Determined 44" x 14" Paper, red clay and encaustic on birch panel 2011 |
Laura Tyler
I make swarms of paintings. They come from the garden where I go to gather plants. I trawl for shapes in the leaves, stems, pods and flowers, bringing cut or pulled plants into the studio where I make large gesture drawings using ink. The drawings are like a garden of shapes from which I can harvest 5" x 4" chunks. I use a cropping tool to help me find the ripest, most juicy specimens to make into paintings. I look for shapes that carry an emotional charge or tell a story. Sometimes I pick shapes that shift and remind me of other things.
I think about edges, the fine edges and curves of naturally drawn bee comb, the way they approach and get close but not so close as to touch. I think about color and its role in the garden. The way it can attract or camouflage, drawing a pollinator's attention to the nectarie of a blossom, or helping a prey insect blend in. In the studio, color is medicine; just the right red or yellow or blue in a painting can do wonders to make the world right.
Mostly, I think about words, names of plants, names of plant parts, things the plants remind me of, painting names, names of songs, parts of books, the people talking on the radio. I compose letters in my head to my friends.
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No Detail Unlovely 5” x 4” Encaustic and ink on panel 2010-2011 |
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Present 5” x 4” Encaustic and ink on panel 2010-2011 |
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Rufous 5” x 4” Encaustic and ink on panel 2010-2011 |
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Tresses 5” x 4” Encaustic and ink on panel 2010-2011 |
Kellie Weeks
I have always had a fascination for water and bodies of water. I believe that they contain the primordial ooze that helped foster evolution. When I discovered the role that water plays in pollination, I came to respect it even more. Considering abiotic pollination, which is pollination without the aid of another organism, 98 % is carried out by wind, and only 2% by water. Thus, in my assumption, conditions have to be just right in order for all of the constituents to amalgamate, and in a sense, give birth: a miracle. Thus these paintings, the By Water Series, are an abstract approach to portraying the variety of implications of water found in earth’s many forces of nature.
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At the Creek, Royal Surge, The Swell, At Water’s Edge II, By Water III, By Water II, By Water I, At Water's Edge, Replenished All 12” x 12” Encaustic on wood panel 2011 |
Gregory Wright
In dream analysis, bees can represent the industrious activities, communication, and conscientious choices in which we humans are involved. The act of pollination serves as a metaphor for how and what we choose to communicate, as well as the cultivating of ideas and thoughts. Our motives for communication and our reactions to it can be questioned. As we deliver our pollen, do we spread the love, promote peace and happiness, awaken our inner senses, or react with gut emotion? The elaborate pollination dance can be equated to the varied forms of social networking, so prevalent in today’s society. Are we communicating effectively and kindly, or are we enveloped in gossip, anger, and unkind motives, as we carry our pollen from flower to flower?
The driving forces and motives behind our communication can be represented and defined by the various colors of flowers and their parts. Red is the color of passion and emotion; it evokes a visceral response. Orange is the color of warmth, growth, and expansion; it provides a fertile ground for development. Yellow symbolizes clarity, truth and intellect deep within; it can awaken the soul. Green can prompt us to nurture others and ourselves, with its significance of love, healing, and growth.
Upon arising from these dreams, we may question where and how we exchange our thoughts and ideas. In my series Forces, I incorporate these philosophies to influence my imagery.
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Fertile Ground 40”x36” Encaustic, oil, pigment, and shellac on birch panel 2010 |
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Visceral Response 40”x36” Encaustic, oil, pigment, and shellac on birch panel 2010 |
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Awakening 16”x16” Encaustic, oil, pigment, and shellac on birch panel 2011 |
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Spreading The Love 16”x16” Encaustic, oil, pigment, and shellac on birch panel 2011 |
INSTALLATION SHOTS OF THE SHOW
Sister Bee
April 2001
The bees arrived in a shoebox-shaped cage in the mail. My husband and I picked them up at the post office. A three pound cluster of live insects clung to the feeder can inside the cage. The weather was terrible. It snowed for three days so we kept the bees in a guest room on a coffee table covered with newspaper. Finally, on the fifth day we installed them in the hive. The queen went in first. Thousands of workers followed. I watched in awe as they climbed the sides of the box, a mat of seething bees festooning and measuring their new home for comb, a wonderfully synchronous feat.
2011 marks my eleventh year keeping bees. The wonder and curiosity I felt my first year as a beekeeper inspired the making of SISTER BEE and continues to influence my work as a painter. Age-old symbols of industry and purity, honeybees rise with the sun to meet the flowers. Each part of a worker bee from her feet to her eyeballs is covered with tiny hairs on which male pollen is caught, carried and delivered to female flowers. Pollen connects with an ovule and makes a seed. A ray of sun caught by a leaf is transformed into nectar which the bees make into the honey that fuels the production of beeswax flakes they excrete from their abdomens. Their work suggests transformation and duality. In the bees we see alchemy, order and chaos; darkness and light; male and female; work and rest; sweetness and pain . . .
Lately, honeybees have inspired an international conversation about our treatment of the environment. Canaries in the coal mine of the pollinator world, honeybees are struggling. It's been a tough year. Our brood chambers are riddled with gaps known as shotgun brood, a symptom that occurs when house bees remove sick larvae from the nest. The problem is widespread and beekeepers have noted a correlation between its emergence and the appearance of a fungicide in pollen samples taken from bees coming off almond fields in California. We have many questions. Science has been slow to answer. The political issues related to honeybee mortality seem intractable. Yet the bees, their lives rich with metaphor and poetry, continue to inspire.
Perhaps in art there are answers.
Laura Tyler
Canary In The Coalmine!
For many years, canaries were used in coalmines as a warning system to determine if the air was breathable. This was to help insure the safety of the miners. Today the honeybee is our canary. The onset of Colony Collapse Disorder several years ago brought awareness of the honeybee’s plight, as well as the condition of our agricultural system and environment, to the forefront of most people’s minds. Visit any local farmers’ market today and you will hear conversations between concerned citizens about our world.
Colony Collapse Disorder is a condition that was brought about by the vast changes in our agricultural system in the past fifty years, along with globalization of our world food supply. It’s just not as simple as it used to be. We have over seven billion people in the world to feed and we are reacting to this need in the wrong way. Pesticides and herbicides have wreaked havoc on our land. Add in a completely new set of pests and diseases that are assaulting the bees, and it is the perfect storm. The bees are trying to tell us to WAKE UP. We need to change the way we do things.
Most people are not aware of the pollination efforts that are required for about 25 percent of our crops. There are beekeepers who manage upwards of 20,000 or more hives to pollinate these crops. This is a complex and dangerous situation for the bees. There was a study done last year based on 500 hives throughout the country that sampled everything in the hives including wax, honey, bees, pollen and larvae. This study found 117 pesticides at sub-toxic levels. That number is astounding and the impact of these pesticides on the bees is not yet fully understood, but it can only spell disaster. If you read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, you will understand what the devastating impact of pesticides truly means.
All of this sounds full of doom and gloom, but if you visit farmers’ markets and listen to people, you will hear that they care about this. They want to help change these conditions. There are more and more farmers’ markets popping up all over the country. The increase in the number of Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) farms is astonishing. Everyone wants to buy local, fresh and organic. And it’s not just vegetables – it’s everything – eggs, meat, cheese, and poultry. More and more people are growing their own vegetables, raising chickens and keeping honeybees.
When I became a beekeeper, there were 18 people in my bee school class. I am now the bee school instructor, and we had over 100 people in bee school last year. In the movie, Vanishing of the Bees, David Hackenberg makes a statement that basically says, “One man with 60,000 hives can’t make a difference, but 60,000 beekeepers with one hive each can.” So the hope is that each beekeeper can help change the world, one neighbor at a time, one yard at a time, one community at a time. The most important thing is that you have a choice. You CAN make a difference. Stop using pesticides and herbicides on your lawn, support your local farmers by buying direct, or join a CSA. Make a better choice for yourself, your family, your community and the world as a whole.
Tony Lulek, President
Norfolk County Beekeepers Association
Thank You
This show was a group effort and I could have never done it alone. I would like to extend my gratitude to the following people: Eileen Byrne for all her tireless efforts and helping me to bring my dream to fruition, The Brush Gallery for hosting this exhibition, all the artists for their creations, Laura Tyler for her beautiful documentary, Tony Lulek for his passionate interest in bees, Lynette Haggard and Sue Katz for designing the marketing pieces, Nancy Natale for her editorial finesse, The Lowell Cultural Council and The Massachusetts Cultural Council for generously funding this project, The Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation for funding the show catalog, James Dyment for the catalog design and the National Park Service for use of their theatre facilities.
Gregory Wright
Gregory, this is fantastic, amazing and moving. What wonderful work and impassioned words- so true, so critical. Last years show on bees at the conference led me in a new direction- and I am still working at making "brood chambers" with encaustic and flower petals, as a memento mori and as a supplication for the continuation of bees. These brood chambers are based on the mason bee, who builds singular nests of mud and botanical material, and pollinates plants - it makes me feel line one of the 600,000 beekeepers with one beehive, one way of getting the message out to others. Thank you for this eerie, insightful, inspiring exhibition and text. Susanne Arnold
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