It’s an open secret that the art produced by many “masters” is not entirely of their own hand. Michelangelo, Da Vinci, even Chihuly, all had teams of apprentices rendering some of the laborious details of their work.
I’ll do them one better: I had a team of 60,000 help me with my sculptures. 60,000 bees, that is.
As regular readers know, I keep two hives of bees in my back yard. As you may not know, I’ve been experimenting with placing bits of randomness in the hive at the beginning of the season, and encouraging the girls to encase or entomb the objects in wax and comb. It’s a long process, since each piece takes a full season to build, and I only have two hives to work with, but it’s been turning out well, I think. My most recent piece began by placing a string of LED lights in the hive for the bees to build around.
The results of my labors (and theirs) will be on display this month at the Vermillion Gallery (1508 11th Ave) in Capitol Hill January 14 – February 7 as part of the Winter Lights: Explorations in Self-Illuminated Art show. The opening reception is this Thursday, January 14th from 5 – 8 pm. Come on by and say hello.
very, very cool.
So, are the bees gonna live? Was it year before last when there was scarcely a bee to be found? Did someone fix the bees?
That’s a great looking piece, Jordan. Congratulations on the showing.
do the lights affect them in any way? Are they warm?
No, I chose LED lights because they don’t give off much heat.
Wow cool! My friend Simon Winder is also in the same show! I can’t make the opening, but will definitely go check out your stuff.
Amazing!!!! How cool. Good luck at the show tonight. We wont be able to make the opening but will try to see these masterpieces in person soon.